Dr. Liccione,
With all due respect, I don't think that this post is at all fair to Ben. I have been a correspondent with him for some time, and his blog has been an inspiration for me in many ways. But his conversion to Orthodoxy was a profoundly personal process, and the fact that he didn't emerge guns blazing against the Catholic Church but instead put his reasons in rather curt terms on his own blog only after informing a few select people (like myself) shows a lot of class on his part. I think a lot of Orthodox converts could emulate this. Bringing it out in the open and advertising it is not something that he would want, and I think he only gave a reason for his conversion quite reluctantly.
I have had my own problems with the Church, Vatican II, and the like. Heck, I was an SSPX seminarian, and most of the time not a repentant one. I don't appreciate labels (rad-trad, neo-Cath, etc.), and am trying more and more to get rid of them in what I write and think. People sometimes have very personal reasons for doing things, and let's face it, converting to Orthodoxy is not that bad of a choice all things considered. I just feel that we should only draw the attention that Ben has chosen to draw to it, nothing more and nothing less. In the end, there may be a lot of reasons he has chosen not to reveal to others, and we should just leave it at that.
Arturo:
I too have followed Ben's blog, and I am in no sense condemning him for a decision that was obviously made in good conscience after much agonizing. My post makes essentially two points, whose interest lies more in their significance for the Church at large than in their connection with Ben's "personal" reasons for converting, which I cannot really know anyhow.
First, given what he said in his interaction with me and the issuance of Summorum Pontificum soon thereafter, I was taken aback by his conversion. Second, his stated reasons just don't strike me as cogent. All that, I suppose, is good reason to conclude that something had been going on that his actual words don't really communicate. Once again, all I can say is "fair enough." But I still don't find the arguments impressive.
Best,
Mike
Conversion to Orthodoxy seems to satisfy a tendancy to demonstrate a certain animus towards the Roman Pontiff - now, in the past, percieved, or otherwise...
I have watched many folks make this move, I have seen several come back, I have seen others move on.
SS:
I think you're right in many cases, even though I cannot say whether that's what's going on with Ben. And the reason I think you're right has nothing to do with my personal experience. It has to do with the uniquely and astonishingly bold claims made by the papacy.
It seems to me that, once a Christian is sufficiently informed about what is at stake (thus getting past the media's CEO model of the papacy, on which everything is ultimately up for grabs in Rome as either opinion or policy), she must see the Catholic doctrine of the papacy either as divinely revealed or as diabolical hubris. This is why the "pope-is-antichrist" people, whether they come from Mississippi or from Mt Athos, don't particularly disturb me. At least they have a sense of what's at stake, unlike the patronizing relativists we tend to take more seriously.
Best,
Mike
Heh, as a Mississippian Catholic (and former Orthodox catechumen), I can appreciate the last comment 
Dr. Mike L:
You stated: "Since the mid-1980s, we find instead not only a clearly expressed awareness of much that was good in the liturgy, devotional life, and art of the pre-Vatican-II Church, but also actions designed expressly to encourage the restoration of that goodness. Admittedly, in those sectors of the Church where prog sensibilities have taken firm root, such encouragement has often fallen on deaf ears and even elicited protest itself. But that is mostly in spite of Rome, not because of her. "
How can you even say this when, in fact, even the papal masses of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, were filled with much liturgical abuses which most likely encouraged such instances of abuses rather than prevent them?
How can you even say this when, in fact, even the papal masses of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, were filled with much liturgical abuses which most likely encouraged such instances of abuses rather than prevent them?
I am soopoo tired of this charge. A hungry world cries out for the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, and all some people can fixate on is altar girls and mariachi music.
God help us.
I have no idea who Ben is, but I will add him to the list of those whom I present to la Guadalupana at church each week. It is a serious thing to jump off of the Barque of Peter. Whether one jumps off of port or starboard, one still runs the risk of drowning.
... all some people can fixate on is altar girls and mariachi music.
Yes -- why should anybody take liturgical abuses so seriously?
After all, it concerns only the proper worship of Our Lord and Saviour.
Mike,
A couple of quick points. First I regret the use of a certain term in your essay that carries with it an unmistakable impugnation of negative character. I refer to the repeatedly used term “ilk.” I have no recollection of your previously using what frankly sounds like a pejorative in reference to someone else in any of your other essays. In MHO the snarky tone did not lend itself well to what was otherwise a reasoned criticism from your perspective. That said I will refrain from commenting further on your points directly since they are mostly a matter of opinion relating to motive and I am not in a position to confirm or reject them.
I will however note that I read his post having had advance warning a couple months back from Ben that he was planning on swimming the Bosporus. When I read his com box comment I was a little taken aback. I am extremely reluctant to impugn anyone’s motive for conversion. It is as you and others have repeatedly noted, a deeply personal matter. That said I will repeat an oft stated observation of mine.
Having serious issues with your church or religious confession can be a very legitimate reason for leaving or at least start looking outside of your current confession for a potential new spiritual home. However, while that may be a reason for leaving one, I have serious doubts as to that being a good reason for joining a church. When I made the move to Orthodoxy after almost a quarter century of hemming and hawing, including a brief stop over among the Trads, it was not because I was running FROM something. Rather, it was because I was running TO something. It would be perfectly fair and accurate to note that the catastrophic state of the Catholic Church on the ground and the widespread liberal wackiness did not make my departure any more difficult. In some ways it may have been the impetus for the earliest stages of my journey. But in the end I became Orthodox because I realized that I WAS Orthodox and NOT Catholic. Further, when I realized it I also realized that such had been the case for many years and it was dishonest on multiple levels for me to remain in a church I had not believed in for some time.
I suspect that most people who read or comment on your blog have had experiences with converts who made the move for reasons that made us cringe a little inside. I have seen converts to both Orthodoxy and Catholicism who made their respective swim for reasons that I felt were perhaps not the best. I personally am worried about the wave of converts coming into both our churches who are in some cases not so much embracing Catholicism or Orthodoxy as they are simply fleeing from the wreckage of Anglicanism. How many of these will remain in their new home I often ask myself? How many are really becoming Orthodox or Catholic? Of course it needs to also be said that sometimes we can do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Once there, God can work His magic with true conversions happen
Continued from above...
Once there, God can work His magic with true conversions happening over time.
Is Ben’s rational for “doxing” a good one? It’s not my place to say. I don’t read hearts. I will say that some of what he wrote reminded me of all those Episcopalians flooding our respective churches. But some of those Episcopalians have become very good Catholics and Orthodox Christians. God can reach people by various means. I am content to say welcome home and many years to him as he begins his spiritual journey in Orthodoxy.
ICXC
John
I think many Vatican II Catholics have a certain distate for Trads that runs deeper than Orthodoxy, that's what it explains the term used to me anyway.
" I think many Vatican II Catholics have a certain distate for Trads that runs deeper than Orthodoxy, that's what it explains the term used to me anyway."
Some of us more sympathetic to "rad trad" tendencies could think that this antipathy comes from a nagging suspicion that we are right and they are standing on shaky ground and they know it. But that is an argument I wouldn't want to start.
Rad-Trads are living in a utopia and not reality. That's the problem.
I see my coinage "neocaths" is still running!
Here is a good piece by Michael Bayly:
McClory reminded the audience that: “Vatican II says we’re not there yet. We don’t know everything. The Church is growing. It is moving and developing. And how does it develop? Through the contemplation and study made not just by the hierarchy, but by believers, and through the ‘intimate understanding’ of things they experience. This is what the Church teaches. It’s a foundational teaching. Accordingly, the Church cannot simply: ‘We’ve got all the answers now. Just listen and be obedient.’”
..
The Church’s changing attitudes and teaching on usury was also discussed. McClory noted that for 1600 years the taking of interest on a loan was considered sinful because Jesus says, “Give, asking nothing in return.” (Also, as William Hunt notes, “charging interest was seen as contrary to the very nature of money. Treating something sterile as though it were productive was going against nature.”) For these and other reasons, usury was forbidden until the sixteenth century and the birth of capitalism, at which point the teaching began to change. In 1850 the pope himself borrowed (at a substantial rate of interest) some fifty million francs from the Rothschild banking house for remodeling and repairing St. Peter’s Basilica. “And now in the Code of Canon Law (1983),” said McClory, “it is stated that every head of a Catholic religious institution is obliged to take the money left over from the activities of that organization and put it into a bank account to earn interest.” In short, “that which was formerly deemed intrinsically evil has come to e regarded as a serious moral obligation on the part of Church management.”
..
Accordingly, “one cannot be an intelligent Catholic,” he insists, “without saying that doctrine can be wrong in future and, more to the point, can be wrong in the present.”
“To deny this and to insist that one must hold everything the Vatican teaches with absolute certainty, is, to use a theological term, ‘nuts,’” McClory remarked wryly. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Ultramontanists, too, are living in a timewarp and an unreal world. No wonder people convert to churches where the community lives and breathes and there is not endless noisy obstructionist obsessing about the Pope.
Fr O'Leary:
I notice that you've been hammering away at the usury issue for several weeks now. Your argument, in this case as in many others, is that development of Church teaching on this topic entails negation of a precept that had been definitively taught. Apparently you disagree with John Noonan, the scholar who, by all accounts including yours, has made the most thorough study of the topic's history. Here's what he concludes:
This dogmatic teaching remains unchanged. What is a just title, what is technically to be treated as a loan, are matters of debate, positive law, and changing evolution. The development of these points is great. But the pure and narrow dogma is the same today as in 1200.
In my own treatment of usury, which you apparently have not read, I defend that conclusion. So development has not entailed negation of what had been definitively taught.
However, development has entailed an ever-clearer formulation of the doctrine of the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium. The first explicit application of the doctrine by the Magisterium was to the question of women's ordination. I suppose that's why you call it 'new' and don't believe we need to believe it. 
Best,
Mike
John:
Thanks for that contribution. I agree with you. Of course nothing in particular follows about Ben, as you recognize.
Best,
Mike
Arturo:
Some of us more sympathetic to "rad trad" tendencies could think that this antipathy comes from a nagging suspicion that we are right and they are standing on shaky ground and they know it. But that is an argument I wouldn't want to start.
Nor would I. For my part, however, I will say that I've never had such a suspicion, nagging or otherwise. What I do believe is that many bishops, including the Vatican "liturgist" Archbishop Bugnini, went way beyond Vatican II in implementing its directives. The debate between "trads" and "neoCaths" is over whether enough of the blame lies with the Council itself to enable us to conclude that the Council was misguided from the start. In that debate I stand with the Pope, who worked at the Council as a peritus, and I don't think it's helpful to speculate that those who stand with me might worry that the trads were right all along. Perhaps some do, but the debate itself far transcends personal psychology, which cannot begin to settle it.
Best,
Mike
e:
The question whether God can be appropriately worshipped with altar girls or indigenous music is a matter of opinion, not definitive doctrine. I happen to think that JP2 was liturgically rather tin-eared, but that is beside my main point, which would be that under his papacy, the old Mass returned as an option, the overall incidence of liturgical abuses began to decline, and Eucharistic devotion increased. I don't think he did enough, but then B16 has been picking up where his predecessor left off. By no reckoning can the trend under the last two popes be called "the devastation of the objective Catholic patrimony." Rather, that devastation continues to be reversed.
Best,
Mike
Conversion to Orthodoxy seems to satisfy a tendancy to demonstrate a certain animus towards the Roman Pontiff - now, in the past, percieved, or otherwise...
I have found it odd that so many Roman Catholics identify all dissenters from Rome as "protestants" - including the 'protesting' Orthodox. This is well in line with Rome's view of herself and her history, of course, but does not take into account the 'aggressive' actions of Rome that have driven many in the world to mistrust the Vatican. It also lumps together very different reasons for communionlessness with Rome - Lutherans, Assyrians, Copts, Orthodox and dissenting Catholics (Old Catholics, SSPX) are all out of communion with Rome for very different reasons, which is itself only an issue if one believes Rome and communion with the church their today to be very important.
When dealing with conversion to/from any faith, there are two important steps to note, and they must not be confused. First is an 'opening' or break that allows a pious _________ to look at outside that communion and consider the possibility that other denominations/religions are possible. This could be anything from a miracle, to a scandal, to intellectual doubts to aesthetics. These reasons are generall, though not always, negative. There is disatisfaction with the faith of one's family, youth, history, etc. This merely 'allows' one the freedom to consider other faiths. Second are the reasons why that person becomes ________ rather than ________ when converting from the old faith.
It is often the case that a convert's reasons for converting are tarred with the often petty, psychological, cultural or familial facts that allowed or drove the person to consider other faiths. This is disengenuous; it's a good rhetorical trick, but it seeks merely to dismiss any critiques that move beyond the initial. I may have considered Orthodoxy due to my falling out with Lutheran friends, but I didn't convert because I fell out with my Lutheran friends - I could just as easily have converted to nothing or Buddhism or Catholicism.
Fr. O'Leary....are you not being just a tiny tad disingenuous? Do you think a modernist like you would feel either welcome or comfortable in, say, ROCOR or the OCA?
It's amazing how everyone -- Orthodox, Protestants, and even RC dissidents -- beats up on the pope and the papacy. Le Maistre famously said that "hatred [of the papacy] is the tie that unites all of the separated churches." He wasn't
kidding. Of course, this unity in hatred should give all the dissenters pause--Protestants, Orthodox, and modernists alike. Our Lord said that if the workd hated Him, it would hate us also. Hmmmmmm....
Diane...just a Catholic, thank you very much; not a neo-Cath, tradCath, or anything else but a Catholic, period
The question whether God can be appropriately worshipped with altar girls or indigenous music is a matter of opinion, not definitive doctrine. I happen to think that JP2 was liturgically rather tin-eared, but that is beside my main point, which would be that under his papacy, the old Mass returned as an option, the overall incidence of liturgical abuses began to decline, and Eucharistic devotion increased. I don't think he did enough, but then B16 has been picking up where his predecessor left off. By no reckoning can the trend under the last two popes be called "the devastation of the objective Catholic patrimony." Rather, that devastation continues to be reversed.
So well put...absolutely says it all.
Diane, lost in admiration
Christopher Orr: You raise a good point, but isn't it a bit beside the point? All Christian communions have a lot to answer for. (Read up on Orthodoxy's treatment of Greek Catholics or on on Good Queen Bess's treatment of Recusant Catholics.) And 1204 was a lonnnnng time ago. We Catholics have sincerely repented of these past sins, and we are trying to move on. Shouldn't our Orthodox and Protestant brethren do the same, especially seeing as they are far from guiltless themselves?
I confess that I am among those who see Orthodoxy as in "protest" against Catholicism. As someone remarked to me recently, quoting his EC priest, "Whom are the Protestants PROTESTing? Whom are the Eastern Orthodox East of?"
Moreover, this posture of protest is reflected in Orthodox polemics, which are notoriously rife with "anti" stuff--anti-Catholicism, first and foremost. Heck, even Photios Jones' combox comments testify to this: Rather than singing the praises of Orthodox theology and spirituality, he spends most of his time bashing Catholic theology and spirituality. If that isn't protest--the essential element in Protestantism--then what is it?
At our local Greek festival, during the sanctuary tour, the very nice docent (a convert) hands out tracts showing (among other things) how Rome supposedly went off the rails. I guarantee you will not find anything comparable in any Catholic church. Our tract racks are usually filled with practical, pastoral stuff, not with attacks on other communions. That's just one teeny example of what I mean, but I think it's a compelling one.
As someone else said (I forget where), Catholicism is the positive religion par excellence. Both Protestantism and Orthodoxy, by contrast, define themselves essentially against Rome...which is why they invariably introduce a sharply negative note into their apologetics. You see it in Chick tracts as well as in the works of John Romanides, Justin Popovich, Alexy Young, Clark Carlton, et al. Same playbook; different players.
Here's another example. When evangelicals become Catholic, they almost invariably speak in warm, affectionate terms of their former communions. They see themselves as fulfilled Protestants, as completed evangelicals, not as anti-anybody. (Scott Hahn, Marcus Grodi, Steve Ray, and countless others exemplify what I am describing here.) But when evangelicals become Orthodox, when Catholics become Orthodox, or when Catholics become Protestant (especially fundamentalist), they very often adopt a harshly negative stance toward their former communions. Not invariably, but often enough so that it gets noticed, believe me. It's as if both Protestantism and Orthodoxy thrive on protest, on the "anti" mentality. Sorry to be so blunt, but I have seen this again and again and again.
I'm sure you can find exceptions--e.g., converts to traddie Catholicism who gleefully bash Protestants and Orthodox -- but those exceptions simply prove t
...simply prove the rule.
(lost the rest of the post, but it doesn't matter...more later.)
Diane, dodging the brickbrats
Diane,
I have a hard time believing you've read anything I've ever written.
Photios
The Le Maistre quote is exactly what I have been talking about. It's assumed Romanocentrism is what I find fascinating. The Orthdox term for the Orthodox Church is simply the "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church". Any other descriptors are merely explanatory to the masses and those unfamiliar with her. Of course, this is also the 'official' name of the Lutheran churches, too, who are, of course, in no way worshippers of Luther.
Whille RC churches here do not note the differences between herself and other churches, I woudl bet you anything that RC churches do note differences in countries with overwhelming majorities of other denominations or faiths. I bet western Ukraine would list a lot of 'negative' things vis a vis Orthodoxy.
You are correct, though, that 'remembrance of wrongs' is a major failing in many religious folks - especially those that feel aggrieved and did not come out on top, or at least more powerful. We all do the same regarding the pagan Roman Empire, it's just there isn't a paganism around for us to worry about, now.
I also think your picture of what converts to RC vs. Orthodoxy are like is rather stereotyped. Your anecdotal experiences sound more internet based, than real life based. It also smacks of looking for what you want to see - I don't think you can make any hard and fast rules. I know at least one very outspoken and harsh, self-publishing convert to RCism from Orthodoxy who doesn't fit your generalization.
Of course, if you ask someone why they are Orthodox rather than RC, you are asking for a specific set of reasons and critiques that will inevitably be negative due to the question asked. If you simply ask why a person is Orthodox, it would likely be positive.
It should also be noted that whatever soft and respectful tone may be had in North American and Western RCism, I am sure this is not found everywhere in the world, and it is a relatively recent occurance. Trust takes time, proof in action and words, and while the late 20th Century has seen a concerted effort to change course and tack re non-RC communions and faiths, a lot of water has gone under the bridge quite contrary to the more recent tone. Rome wasn't built in a day, after all, neither can it be rebuilt in a day.
Christopher: I'm not talking about asking someone why he or she is Orthodox. I'm talking about encountering aggressively, proactively negative polemics on the Orthodox side. The Greek festival tract I mentioned is but one example.
C'mon, Christopher, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. One cannot bung a brick at the religious Internet without hitting an anti-Catholic screed by an Orthodox polemicist.
There is simply nothing comparable on the Catholic side to this level of "anti" hostility.
Diane
Diane,
We have no idea what the tracts said and we have little reason to trust your testimony to reproduce the arguments in them. Furthermore, we have little reason to believe that they testify to an aggressive attitude based on how we read your usual "argument = aggression" relativism. Being Orthodox in UNOrthodox lands forces Orthodoxy in a predicament of proclaiming their peculiar distinctiveness, this is just habitual sociology at play and is natural in the same sense that the Orthodox lived in a world full of Arians proclaiming their distinctiveness in a way that was ANTI-Arian and "ANTI-catholic" to Arian ears, or to the "ANTI-Greek" of the culture before the conversion of the empire (and even beyond that).
If you think this is full of it, try reading the dissertation up on my blog by a guy down at Baylor Univ. of the title "Political Hesychasm."
Photios
The question whether God can be appropriately worshipped with altar girls or indigenous music is a matter of opinion, not definitive doctrine.
I'm not saying it is -- however, you cannot deny that liturgical abuses opens the door to the defying of doctrine.
For example, in a liberal Catholic church I had once attended wherein rock-n-roll style Protestant worship music is often played in their 'services' (I use that term since this is their 'preferred' term as opposed to 'Mass'), its congregants are far more open to the notion of having female priests.
Now, just why do you think that is?
It's more likely because when you do things to violate traditional Catholic principles at that level, what's to prevent anybody who so chooses from committing more perfidious acts on greater levels such as those which defy doctrine?
Apolonio,
I think being “in a utopia” is not a distinctive trait of “rad-trads” specifically. Even in the Catholic Church, the Spanish saying “cada loco con su tema” (to each madman his gimmick) is applicable. The most bizarre people I have met were those faithful wrapped up in the secrets and revelations of various apparitions of the Virgin Mary. (When I was a seminarian, a woman in the main cathedral of Buenos Aires came up to me to tell me, “Father [I was in cassock at the time], the Virgin has just revealed to me that the major cities of the world are going to be destroyed by giant waves from the ocean”. “That’s nice,” was my only reply.) The most liturgically obsessed people I have seen were good “JP II” Catholics who were much more cultic and fundamentalist about their Latin and smell n’bells than the “trads” of the same parish. Even the non-“trads” I have brought to their Mass would confirm this.
I just find it bizarre that many level-headed, sensible, and orthodox Catholics rhetorically let loose on traditionalists like the young kids of my family go at a piñata with sticks. Either prove definitively that they teach some clearly heretical things (like the so-called “progs”) or leave them be.
Arturo:
I don't believe it would be safe to venture a broad generalization about the degree of heterodoxy among "traditionalists." The trad spectrum runs from those who merely believe the old Mass was better than the new—which they have a perfect right as Catholics to believe—to sedevacantists whose substantive theological views can be pretty wacky. My problem with the more extreme trads, whom I call "rad trads," is not that they are heterodox—a few seem to be, but many are not—but that they regard Rome as heterodox. I briefly considered their arguments while I was at Columbia, investigating Orthodoxy; but once I made the decision to remain Catholic, I ceased ipso facto being able to see the discontinuant view of Vatican II, whether of the prog or the rad-trad variety, as an authentically Catholic one. It is possible to disagree with Rome about the quality of the post-Vatican-II liturgical reform, about the pastoral wisdom of various ecumenical initiatives, and about a whole host of things, without holding that doctrinal development during and since Vatican II has led to such a break with the Catholic patrimony as to call Rome's orthodoxy into question. But over the decades, that's what I've come to see the rad trads as doing.
It's probably to Ben's credit that he took Catholic rad-tradism to its logical conclusion.
Best,
Mike
e:
Of course it is possible for prog innovations in liturgy to lead to doctrinal heterodoxy. But often it does not. It is also possible for trad insistence on a certain view of the Mass to lead to schism. But often it does not.
I think it's much more beneficial to the Church for people to obey Rome about liturgy than to fight with each other about whose brand of disobedience is better.
Best,
Mike
The most bizarre people I have met were those faithful wrapped up in the secrets and revelations of various apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
Funny -- the folks I find so obsessed with questionable claims concerning frequent apparitions of the Virgin Mary are more so the Charismatics.
Of course, I guess any propaganda against traditional Catholics is clearly acceptable so long as it furthers the agenda of the destruction of traditional Catholic ideals.
And, for once and for all, not all those who submit themselves to the ancient tradition of the Catholic Church are 'rad-trads'.
This is merely painting with a broad brush simply for the purpose of quieting the voices of those who would call to attention the many sacrileges acts committed against the Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
It is notable that such Catholics are more accepting of the profaning of the Mass rather than consider that such modern-day practices as liturgical dances and rock-n-roll music are, all in all, sacrileges.
I guess that's the quality of today's Catholics -- open minded only to that extent wherein such liberal practices are found acceptable; however, dismissive of any possibility that what modern practices they have incorporated into the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is indeed sacrileges.
Diane, in a country dominated by Protestants and Catholics a church that 'looks' Catholic will need to speak to people in terms they understand. It's like the old story of the tadpole turning into a frog and jumping out of the water onto dry land; he returns to the pond and all his tadpole friends are asking him what it's like: "Is it wet? is their algae?" etc. He has to try and use terms they are familiar with to describe something wholly other. In many ways, this is what we experience in the Bible and read of in the saints' visions.
The same can also be said of zealous converts looking to understand and share out loud what it is that they have found in Orthodoxy that they perhaps did not find in RCism - either as a convert from RCism or as one that looked closely at and decided against Rome. Whether such public diariests (i.e., bloggers) are wise in comment or choice of format is a question for the internet age - I am sure converts to/from all faiths have excercised low tech versions of the same down through time; 'negatively' and 'postively' so on all sides.
I think you confirmed that your view that Orthodoxy is 'negative' has to do with your internet 'bunging' - a good descriptor for primarily basing one's opinion on things opinionated by reading the self-published online. I am sure neither you nor I are aware of what is happening in the non-English internet in countries with very different Catholic communities and histories vis a vis their neighbors. We are also unaware of those sites and blogs we are unaware of - the internet is a big, big place. Assumptions should be avoided.
Besides, RCism won many of its 'wars' with other denominations and has remained ascendent, relatively. When there was greater 'competition' between RCism and other denominations - and in places where there still is competition for souls and influence - niceties were put to the side. Of course, the same can be said of any and all religious communities in diverse or shifting societies or in those with religious minorities - there is very little religious conflict in spiritually homogeneous societies.
"[W]ithout holding that doctrinal development during and since Vatican II has led to such a break with the Catholic patrimony as to call Rome's orthodoxy into question."
The problem I see with that Mike is that it kind of stagnates the investigative process. The question still remains for the objection, is there any evidence to see that there was such a break and why not?
Photios
Sorry, Christopher. Not buying it. I am far from the only person who has noticed the phenomenon to which I alluded. And it's not just Catholics who notice it.
gotta run; more later
Photios:
I've been debating these matters in detail with Catholic discontinuants for at least 35 years. Some of the fruits of that can be seen in posts I've made to this blog, the ones that deal with "the hermeneutic of continuity," the "neo-Cath" phenomenon, and related topics. Another fruit is my "Development and Negation" series, easily accessible from the sidebar, which I shall develop into a book once my job and housing situation finally afford me the conditions for pursuing such a project in a responsibly scholarly way. I don't want and don't need to rehash all of that here and now. But if, as an ex-Catholic, you want to pursue the discontinuant critique, I'll be happy to rebut your version of it.
Best,
Mike
I think you confirmed that your view that Orthodoxy is 'negative' has to do with your internet 'bunging' - a good descriptor for primarily basing one's opinion on things opinionated by reading the self-published online. I am sure neither you nor I are aware of what is happening in the non-English internet in countries with very different Catholic communities and histories vis a vis their neighbors. We are also unaware of those sites and blogs we are unaware of - the internet is a big, big place. Assumptions should be avoided.
I believe Christopher may have a point here.
Interestingly enough, you don't even have to look that far --
There was actually an Orthdox who assisted in my defense of various Catholic beliefs, citing sources from the early church, in a debate against many Protestants who called these into question.
Personally, for me, this current experience concerning Photios and his aversion to the Catholic Church is a unique experience.
Diane's own view concerning the Orthodox may be more so due to her personal experience with those she's unfortunately encountered rather than actual reality concerning the Orthodox in general.
Dr. Mike L:
Of course it is possible for prog innovations in liturgy to lead to doctrinal heterodoxy. But often it does not. It is also possible for trad insistence on a certain view of the Mass to lead to schism. But often it does not.
Unfortunately, my own experience says otherwise.
Think of it with respect to Mt 25:14-30 --
Do you really believe that those who fail to act responsibly over things of small matters will actually act responsibly over things that are greater?
I think it's much more beneficial to the Church for people to obey Rome about liturgy than to fight with each other about whose brand of disobedience is better.
It is important for the flock to be obedient to its shepherd; however, you cannot deny that it is important to point out the egregious errors being committed by sections of the flock, especially when it does destruction to our Catholic heritage, which is, in fact, vital to our overall Catholic identity.
Incidentally:
Another fruit is my "Development and Negation" series, easily accessible from the sidebar, which I shall develop into a book once my job and housing situation finally afford me the conditions for pursuing such a project in a responsibly scholarly way.
Do you have a timeframe already planned out for this (i.e., time to market)?
Mike,
You've already been engaging in this 'hermeneutic of continuity/discontinuity" with me it's just that I relocate the problem to the 9th century between Pope Nicholas and Patriarch Photios and how the former's claims become wedded to the filioque doctrine. As descriptive, I see the problem of the Vatican II Council as it relates to this deeper problem of the 9the century and as somewhat of a footnote to that crisis, specifically how we are to read texts, the development of doctrine, and the possibility of a systematic takeover and subversion on a political and ecclesiastical level. I'm sure we'll have more to say about that as time goes one here.
But to anyone else, we can't just ignore the trads or not take there arguments seriously, because it is by God's grace that they are in fact "traditional" and exist at all. It takes divine aid to combat the sort of institutive takeover that happened to the beautiful Gregorian rite.
Photios
...aversion to the Catholic Church is a unique experience...
I think aversion is a poor choice of words. It should be quite possible to disagree with another denomination or religion, have reasons as to why you have not converted to __________ and did convert to _________, or remained _________, without that thoughtfulness and articulatation bearing the implications of aversion - as if it were more of an emotional, 'low', lacking and simple reaction against _________.
When one adds into this discussion the fact that we are talkign about salvation and where it is and is not to be found, well, then we often simply witness the zeal of believers, not 'convertitis', 'protest'-ers or other dismissives.
Personally, I find James Likiudis and Diane's ()and many other RCs aware of or interested in Orthodoxy) reaction to the Orthodox Church to be due to 'aversion' and other issues of unconscious paradigmatics, but such tags are really in the eye of the beholder and should be avoided in any honest discussion as unhelpful.
Christopher Orr:
Cleaerly, you completely took my comments out of context.
I was referring to Photios own views concerning the Catholic Church.
As I alluded to previously, my own experience with the Orthodox have been a positive one.
Moreover, in my previous comments, I was referring to the negative light in which Diane seem to have regarded the Orthodox primarily (it seems) due to her personal experience with those that claim to be so on the Internet.
I was, all in all, attempting to make the point that to regard the Orthodox in general in this negative light would be a mistake since, in Diane's case particularly, it seems to all have been shaped by her own experience with merely a handful of these individuals claiming to be Orthodox; but just because this may have been her experience with a certain of them should not necessarily apply to the Orthodox in general.
Christopher Orr:
Further to the above, are you serious here or attempting a dramatic flare for rhetoric?
...bearing the implications of aversion - as if it were more of an emotional, 'low', lacking and simple reaction against _________.
That is, I may have an 'aversion' to brocolli but that does not mean that I regard it in such emotional, 'low', lacking and so forth.
You are projecting, it seems, your own prejudices (perhaps inadvertently?) into this discussion here.
Conversion from one thing to another is a strange creature in this country. Americans see themselves as an almost messianic people, and their quest for the "true New Testament Church" is often colored by their view that America "makes all things new". For this reason, I think the Book of Mormon is the most American of books. This love of novelty and sense of religious superiority ranges from the Quaker in his prayer circle to a convert Orthodox re-christened Barsanuphius Smith doing prostrations during the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem.
Even in the Mexican American community here in the U.S., people don't convert from one religion to another for the same reasons that Anglos convert. The search for the "true Church" doesn't enter into the equation a lot of times: a greater sense of community, assimilation, and pastoral negligence of their current church do. In Brazil, people don't convert to Pentecostalism because they think they have found the New Testament Church or a purer version of the Faith once delivered to the Apostles. They convert since the Catholic Church has so de-mystified its rites and devotions in the name of the social Gospel that people feel that they have to resort to speaking in tongues and faith healings to feel any contact with the Divine.
Even the treatment of the Protestant churches in Latin America is completely different. Most Catholics and non-Catholics call Protestant churches "las sectas", a name that I don't think I need to translate. In seminary in Argentina, our apologetics class was aimed primarily against atheistic rationalists and not Protestants, and Protestantism often barely appeared on our collective radar screen.
Daniel Mitsui on his blog once said that staying in the religion of your birth because your ancestors have always been of that Faith is not the best reason for holding your beliefs, but it certainly is a good one, and it is a better one than what many people have. I am not as optimistic as Dr. Liccione about the guiding hand of the Papacy, nor am I yet as confident in the "hermeneutic of continuity" as it relates to elements of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council that I am concerned about. It is not for that reason, however, that I will ever jump ship. What else is there to jump to? Could not such wanderings, like those of the Mormon pioneers, lead into the harsh American wilderness in search of a New Jerusalem, one that is very much of our own (and only our own) making?
I just thought I would step in on the sub discussion Diane has been having with Orthodox guests here. My own experience mirrors both sides.
All face to face my encounters with Orthodox have been of one kind: polite and respectful descriptions of differing practices, combined with polite interest in how the "other" does things.
Almost all my encounters with Orthodox on the Internet, on the other hand, have been as Diane describes them and have made my skin crawl: nothing but snide "gotcha" polemics, no capacity for self criticism, never an admission that there may be more than one side to an issue, or that there may be some (holy and good) things that are done better on this side of the Tiber.
Some of the Orthodox hostility on the Net (driven in large part by what seem to be Protestant converts, though it's hard to tell for sure) appears to verge on delusional hatred to the point where I now use "Athonite" as a catch word for Orthodox contempt and spiritual intolerance of the anti-Catholic variety.
More moderate Orthodox apologists really need to take this phenomenon more seriously (both mine and Diane's experience, and our reaction). It has certainly poisoned much of *my* pre Internet respect for Eastern Orthodoxy, and I have never encountered anything like this level of irrational hostility from Assyrians or Oriental Orthodox.
As for the reverse side of the coin, the lowest anti-Orthodox remark I have ever encountered from a Catholic (significantly perhaps, an Eastern one), was that the Orthodox "obsession with national Churches" at the expense of the universal (or even pan-Orthodox) Church, or of genuinely reigonal primacies verged on heresy. Now that might be a little extreme, but it reflects more a traditional Catholic suspicion of nationalism (a known solvent for the universal Church) than outright hostilty to Orthodoxy per se.
Michaël
e,
My problems with Rome are principally dogmatic ones.
Photios
Michael,
What you say does not "fit" well with what the two Churches are committed to dogmatically. Both Churches makes exclusive claims on eccleciastical grounds. One is the true Church and the other is not. One proclaims the other to be in schism and heresy with the first insertion of the filioque into the creed. On the other hand, one proclaims that the other lacks the fullness of truth that can only be found in the Church of Rome as she has now defined herself.
That you had a cordial discussion with an Orthodox does not eliminate that their are real theological differences between the two or that you had an actual theological discussion that made thoses differences apparent. That's because most people aren't prepared to engage in such discussions and most don't care to or that it's even proper to do so at that time. I know that I don't personally engage every single Catholic that comes my way and in fact rarely do, this is because there are far more important things to do and talk about that then something like the filioque in my life. But this is a theological blog, there is the class room...this is the context for such things.
Your last paragraph is the best thing I've seen you write so far. The current state of Orthodox "Nationalism" is not keeping with the Universalism of the Roumeli-Byzantine oikounomia. This is why Romanides, Florovsky, and Yannaras point to that aspect of "Roumeli" with Orthodoxy having its universal character. Nationalism is Orthodoxy's current state of "secularization."
Photios
Two addenda:
A friend of mine who studied in Italy once asked a man if he was Catholic. When he replied that he was, my friend then asked him where he went to Mass, to which he replied, "I said I was Catholic, not a fanatic!" That can give you a bit of insight on how non-Americans see their religious identity.
On the other hand, if you took another example of Catholics and Protestants dwelling in the same place, you might consider the Maya Indians in highlands of Central America. There, the historic negligence of the Catholic Church has meant that any form of Christianity has had at best a tenuous hold over the Maya, and when the Protestant sects came in, they began to fill a vacuum. Even so, people there often convert because they consider it a means of social and economic advancement, as well as mutual aide. It allows them more local control of their churches in a situation where they have been made historically to feel inferior. On the other hand, those who remain Catholic might see their former co-religionists as party-poopers who refuse to celebrate the feast of the local saint and get drunk like everyone else: the Papacy and the hermeneutic of continuity are nowhere to be found. My burning question is if their religiosity is more or less shallow than our own, here in the high tech, cyber-savy First World. Most of the time, I doubt that it is.
Photios,
"What you say does not "fit" well with what the two Churches are committed to dogmatically. Both Churches makes exclusive claims on eccleciastical grounds."
Obviously there are differences, these can still allow for fair and polite discourse, however.
"One proclaims the other to be in schism and heresy with the first insertion of the filioque into the creed."
Actually, I know (apparently) theologically sophisticated Orthodox who consider use of the "h" word in this context inappropriate (see the American Catholic-Orthodox Theological dialogue document, for example).
On the other hand, for some, the West's "heretical" azymitism, for example, dates from much earlier than you suggest. It all depends on the depth of one's anti-Catholic temper.
Michaël
e,
My problems with Rome are principally dogmatic ones.
Photios:
In all actuality, I respect that since it implies you don't take lightly the theological gravity of these things which Rome upholds as dogma.
This is quite unlike certain individuals who don't take into serious consideration such things and, in the end, because they have not, they tend to fall away from Rome more often than not.
I speak here of those Protestant converts who don't fully comprehend these matters and merely acquiesce to conversion to Rome without giving any serious thought to the significance of its doctrines.
In the end, a few of these end up drowning in the Tiber because of it and, as a result, end up converting/re-converting to other denominations until, in some cases, they drive themselves out of Christianity altogether.
Diane,
I have a hard time believing you've read anything I've ever written.
Photios
Photios that is a remarkably vitriolic and rude comment to make.
Michael,
I'm not one of those that "tows" the line with the SCOBA representative in that document with that particular question. Particular SCOBA representatives might've had that opinion, but they do not "represent" Orthodoxy, especially when they go against the Synodikon on that question. I'm all for dialogue and debate, but I'm not in favor of commitees of ecumenism that want to ignore what we have said in the past. Laity have a much bigger voice on these things then in RCism.
I'm not sure how you are using "Anti-Catholic," and you'll have to be more clear. If this involves that I believe Rome in heresy, than, that is an emphatic yes. But it seems to me anyway you are using it more as a stifling tactic.
Photios
Michael V.: My experience is actually similar to yours. My face-to-face experiences with the Orthodox have been extremely positive. But then, they are also usually social interactions, not theological debates.
Photios:
If this involves that I believe Rome in heresy, than, that is an emphatic yes.
Is this the primary reason why you generally side with the reformers?
I am alluding to our past discussion on another thread.
The reason I ask is because I still do not see how you can claim that the Orthodox have much in common with the reformers when, in all actuality, much of the issues they had against Rome, theologically speaking, would seem to go against the theological beliefs of the Orthodox as well.
E. Sorry I was jumping off your use of the word to make a more broad comment. I have also never taken Photios' comments re the RCC as anything other than a very smart guy talking about paradigmatic and foundational differences between it and Orthodoxy enunciating why he is not RC, but Orthodox.
Thanks for the generally balanced perspective, though, I appreciated it.
Christopher Orr:
E. Sorry I was jumping off your use of the word to make a more broad comment. I have also never taken Photios' comments re the RCC as anything other than a very smart guy talking about paradigmatic and foundational differences between it and Orthodoxy enunciating why he is not RC, but Orthodox.
No problem!
After all, in a sense, we're all after the same thing and that is Truth!
Although I, myself, disagree with Photios as regards his opinion concerning the Roman Church, I commend him though for his desire to stand fast to Tradition and cling to the Ancient Faith.
Thanks for the generally balanced perspective, though, I appreciated it.
Thanks!
I try to but, obviously, I'll undoubtedly fail at times especially when it comes to the Internet due to its limitations.
e,
“Is this the primary reason why you generally side with the reformers?”
Not really. I generally side with them only proximately when the doctrine in question starts to dovetail with 'natural theology’ and here is where I take someone like Karl Barth very seriously. I see the principle of ‘sola scriptura’ at least as more of a reaction against the scholastic method. Christ is the foundation of the rational principle, in which there is no room for ‘unaided reason.’
I think the program was largely unsuccessful by the Reformers as they were wedded to the Augustnism they inherited, so it’s not a coincidence that Protestant Scholasticism emerged very quickly. What we have bursting forth with the Reformers is a fully fledged and shaped dialectical theology, most notably on the questions of predestination/freewill, church/state, scripture/church, belief/sacraments.
Photios
Photios:
I relocate the problem to the 9th century between Pope Nicholas and Patriarch Photios and how the former's claims become wedded to the filioque doctrine. As descriptive, I see the problem of the Vatican II Council as it relates to this deeper problem of the 9the century and as somewhat of a footnote to that crisis, specifically how we are to read texts, the development of doctrine, and the possibility of a systematic takeover and subversion on a political and ecclesiastical level.
You've thereby reminded of my experiences with non-Catholics on the whole HC/HD business. The most common criticism of Roman Catholicism that I encounter from intelligent, reasonably well-informed people is that the RC course of doctrinal development is, precisely, discontinuous, in the sense that the later, distinctive developments do not arise in any theologically or experientially authentic way from what had been held in common, but are speculative inventions adopted for what are, at bottom, political reasons. Some of these people join the Catholic discontinuants in arguing that Catholic DD actually involves some negations of what had once been definitively taught by the Roman Magisterium.
As you well know, I don't agree with any of the above. But I owe you thanks for widening my scholarly template a bit.
Best,
Mike
Thank you, Simple Sinner. I must confess I was being pretty rude, too, for which I beg forgiveness from my Orthodox brethren.
But now...I am going to be blunt again (although, I hope, not rude). Contra Christopher's assertion, it is not just on the Internet that one encounters this "anti" stuff. After all, the writings of Fr. Romanides predate the Internet. The Archbishop of Athens' reference to the pope as the "two-horned satan" occurred in the Real World, outside of the Internet. Reams and reams of viciously anti-Catholic EO polemics have been produced outside of the Internet.
And there is virtually nothing comparable on the Catholic side--at least not in contemporary Catholicism. (Rare exceptions will only prove the rule, so please don't even go there.)
Fr. Hans von Balthasar (who predated the Internet ) referred to this as Orthodoxy's "anti mentality."
It's a very real phenomenon. And it cannot be dismissed, ignored, or explained away. Just my two cents' worth.
Diane
As for Ben (whoever he is): I have no earthly clue what his motives are; only Jesus knows. But I can say this, based on my interactions with many converts to Orthodoxy: Orthodoxy seems to attract some rather crabby people with a penchant to look down their noses at everyone else on the planet. It also attracts some people who aren't necessarily that way to start with, but, after they Dox, they turn all crabby and grouchy. Then, when they de-Dox, they go back to being nice again. Again, sorry for bluntness, but I have seen this again and again. I can even cite examples, wih names changed to protect the guilty.
Are there many, many exceptions? Sure. But I have encountered more than my share of the crabs--mostly though not exclusively on the Internet. For every irenical sweetheart like the editor at Eirenikon, there aer 20 curmudgeons ranting about how the pope and the West supposedly went completely off the rails at (take your pick) the time of Origen, the time of Augustine, the time of the Evil Franks, or what have you.
Maybe it's just that we women tend to think in more concrete and less abstract terms...but, for me, it's precisely this anti-irenicism, this failure in charity, that renders Orthodoxy's claims to be THE True Church so eminently challengeable. Jesus said we would know His followers by their love, not by their crabbiness.
OK, nuff said. More than enough, probably.
Diane
There are 'antis' and 'antis'. Being firmly against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church when discussing Roman Catholicism is perfectly normal if one is consciously and thoughtfully not Roman Catholic (i.e., Romanides, the Archbishop of Rome, Photios and myself).
It is also difficult not to be seen as negative when the task set before one is to accept nothing but that which has been handed on. The profusion of various dogmatic and doctrinal statements and positions in the West leading up to and accelerating after the final breaks between East and West cast the East in the role of saying no to yet more and more innovative ideas promulgated with the stamp of a previously unknown level of primacy and proto-infallibility.
It's like being the hot single girl at a bar on a Friday night. Is she a b**ch for saying no, no, no, no, no - or is she something else?
To tar everyone who is against Roman Catholicism as "protestant" and having the common denominator of being 'anti-Roman' is to simply exhibit a rather unexamined obssession with self. My old Lutheran synod thought of the world as separated between believers in salvation by faith/grace alone and all others, whether Lutheran, Christian or nothing. It is a position that betrays insularity and an assumption of self as the criteria - it is this Romano-centrism in lumping all non-Roman Catholic Christians together that I find fascinating and meant to point out at the start of all this.
Mike and Christopher,
It is also worthy to note that Orthodoxy has done some of its own dogmatizing after the Schism between local synods like Blachernae in the condemnation of John Bekkos and the promulgation of the Trinitarian theology of St. Gregory Cyprus II which is somewhat the continuation of how to appropriate the Triadology of St. Photios in light of the *dia tou Yiou* phrases in the Greek Fathers (not to mention St. Photios himself) and also the Ecumenical Synod of Constantinople IV with the vindication of Gregory Palamas teaching on God and his anthropology/soteriology as seen as the continuation of Constantinople III. I think these are examples of a hermeneutics of continuity that Catholics would generally be against (though I've seen a few rather key exceptions).
Photios
Diane, Joseph de Maistre (sic) is an extreme right wing ideologue, ultramontanism at its worst. Quoting him undercuts credibility.
Mike "I notice that you've been hammering away at the usury issue for several weeks now. Your argument, in this case as in many others, is that development of Church teaching on this topic entails negation of a precept that had been definitively taught."
Yes -- it was definitively taught that interest on money was unnatural. Now Canon Law says that religious orders has a duty to invest at interest.
"This dogmatic teaching remains unchanged. What is a just title, what is technically to be treated as a loan, are matters of debate, positive law, and changing evolution. The development of these points is great. But the pure and narrow dogma is the same today as in 1200."
I think you are changing the subject. What pure and narrow dogma are you referring to? I am referring to the clear condemnations of taking interest on loans at the time that modern banking was coming into its own. Of course usury in a broader sense remains a sin, and the church has always defended people against exploitative money-lenders, sometimes setting up church credit unions to replace them.
"So development has not entailed negation of what had been definitively taught."
It has entailed negation of what the bulls against interest definitively taught.
"However, development has entailed an ever-clearer formulation of the doctrine of the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium."
A doctrine first mentioned in official teaching in Lumen Gentium.
" The first explicit application of the doctrine by the Magisterium was to the question of women's ordination."
An opportunistic application that has little credibility.
" I suppose that's why you call it 'new' and don't believe we need to believe it."
Hans Kung claims that the doctrine is from Bellarmine, a specialty of Roman theology, introduced at Vatican II without debate.
In any case, like the infallibility of the laity, also taught at Vatican II, it is a very difficult doctrine to invoke in practice. When bishops unites in council it is clear what they teach and hold, but to discern the ordinary teaching of bishops worldwide in any controverted issue is pretty impossible. Passive unexamined ideas do not count.
Canon Law says that we are not obliged to view anything as infallible unless it has been formally declared to be so. The CDF is not an infallible authority, so it cannot magically turn women's non-ordainibility from a passive unexamined view that may have been shared by all bishops in the past (but not necessarily in the present -- the Vatican has not consulted the present world episcopate -- though making noises against women's ordination is a good sign you want to be a bishop; and the Vatican more than ever controls episcopal appointments, so they can word toward a dogmatization of OS in that backdoors way).
from a passive view into an infallible teaching.
Did OS apply the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium to women's ordination? The word "infallible" does not occur in OS.
All we have is: "Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force."
In short, all that John Paul II says is that this issue is one of doctrine not discipline. He says NOTHING about the doctrine being infallible or about the universal ordinary magisterium of bishops.
Diane,
To be fair, there is plenty of anti-Orthodox materials coming from Catholic apologists. Catholic Answers, in their tracts has comparable insultng material as the material you allege. They claim that the Orthodox Church started in 1054 and is therefore a sect based on the teachings of men.
And not to be outdone, your very own James Likoudis is not only just as fiery as John Romandes, but reprints old Catholic Scholastic treatises on the "heresy" of the Orthodox. So diane, I'd simply say that people are people and trying to dismiss people who convert one way or the other based on psychological hang ups and grudes is nothing other than an ad hom.
Please, put this line of thinking to bed, once and for all.
A Simple Sinner,
Actually Photios, myself and Diane have a history (over 5 years) and Diane has a well known disposition to ignore writings that don't argue for or support her own positions, that is, she stacks the deck on a fairly regular basis. If something is pro-Catholic, yeah, its good, if it is critical of Catholicism-boo! its bad. nuff said.
Mike, while agree absolutely with your doctrinal point about HC, I am not quite sure I could fully agree with your point that the liturgical trend under both JPII and B16 is back towards the traditional end, simply. Yes, there are certainly individual acts of the Vatican that halted part of the flow of devastation, and yes, there are specific changes, especially in Summorum, that are directly contrary to the devastation. But with JPII, he continued a long trend of stupid practices and obtuse policy decisions that undermined his overall good "intentions."
Just one example was the 1994 permission for altar girls. The ostensible context of this change was a discovery that Canon Law could not be understood as to exclude girls from serving at the altar. I interpret law day in and day out in my job, and I can guarantee you that this determination was not sound practice of law simply considered as such, and certainly was not unambiguously the only possible determination. Secondly, to the extent that JPII thought that it was sound, he SHOULD have simply changed the law or added a specific rubric that says only boys serve at the altar. Third, although the proclamation permitting girl altar boys put in place certain constraints on the bishops as to moving in that direction, those constraints were laughed at by every bishop who wished and nothing was done by the Vatican.
And this points up a much more serious problem, especially clear from JPII: he had simply no concept of enforcing his decisions. He put out letter after letter decrying abuses, but he never DID anything to the abusers. He refused to use the authority of his office to restrain or punish. He refused to believe that the power to deal with doctrinal and liturgical malefactors is just as important to the faith of the faithful as is teaching the truth.
In the same area, he chose bishop after bishop, and more than a few cardinals, who have ended up being disasters - eg the cardinal of an important archdiocese in the western US. These men were often chosen in spite of their having little regard for the traditional practices of the Church.
I will never leave the barque of Peter, but I don't think it helps to whitewash obvious failures at the helm.
Aw, c'mon, Perry. Has Catholic Answers ever called any Orthodox patriarch "satan"? No. Has Catholic Answers (much less any recent pope) characterized the Orthodox the way the monks of Mount Athos routinely characterize us Catholics? Not even close. I am familiar with the CA material you allude to. I can see how it may come across to the Orthodox as insulting, but let's face it: It's not even remotely in the same league as "two-horned satan." Never does Catholic Answers even remotely imply that the Orthodox are not truly Christians--which is something you and Daniel claim about us Katolicks pretty much all the time.
Apples and oranges, dear.
Christopher: With all due respect, I do not think a small, shrinking, divided communion can be credibly compared with a hot single girl. No offense and please pardon the bluntness, but I think you kind of opened the way for it here....
Photios,
"I'm not one of those that "tows" the line with the SCOBA representative in that document with that particular question. Particular SCOBA representatives might've had that opinion, but they do not "represent" Orthodoxy, especially when they go against the Synodikon on that question."
But of course, *you* do speak for Orthodoxy. Your voice counts for so much more. This free waving of the "h" word, this attitude of dismissal of fellow Orthodox (even ordained hierarchs) who dissagree, and this careful nursing of selected polemic concilliar canons are for me hallmarks of Athonism. Do you see no irony in dogmatizing what essentially amounts to anti-Catholic theologoumena?
"I'm all for dialogue and debate, but I'm not in favor of commitees of ecumenism that want to ignore what we have said in the past. Laity have a much bigger voice on these things then in RCism."
Granted, but not all Orthodox (laity or otherwise) hold such views. And this is my point. Orthodoxy contains a variety of tempers, but anti-Catholics feel free to ignore or dismiss this diversity.
"I'm not sure how you are using "Anti-Catholic," and you'll have to be more clear. If this involves that I believe Rome in heresy, than, that is an emphatic yes. But it seems to me anyway you are using it more as a stifling tactic."
I'm not using it as a term of abuse. It's a definable mind set. Describing a personal belief that the filioque (or azymitism, another anti-Catholic favorite) is heresy is one thing. Asserting that such an ascription is normative for Orthodoxy is another. Otherwise, how to explain that the bulk of Orthodox were content to maintain faith with Western Christians for centuries during which azymitism and recitation of the filioque weere common.
Michaël
Diane,
Its not hard to find Catholics whi lump the Orthodox in with Protestants as explict tools of the devil. Second, not a big leap from calling someone a formal heretic and a minion of satan.
Second, you can't have it both ways. You can't tar the Orthodox with the Atheniote monks when it suits your purposes and then turn around and then use more ecumenically minded Orthodox as being genuine Orthodox when it suits different purposes.
Third, I never said that Catholics weren't Christians. I think plenty of them are and the same with Protestants. I have never said otherwise and here you are bearing false witness against Daniel and myself.
Diane, (Cont.)
I have hardly been active on the net for the last year and rarely posted anything here, so I can't see what you mean by "all the time." More to the point, you consistently make insulting remarks yourself and have recently done so on this blog, not to mention other venues. Everywhere you go you bring insult, lower the quality of the dialog, and simply manifest the property of being a sycophant. If the pope lied, you’d swear to it.
I'd suggest not saying anything if you can't say it without probably insulting the other party. It is not the content of what is said that is the problem, but how you say it.
Tony M.,
"I will never leave the barque of Peter, but I don't think it helps to whitewash obvious failures at the helm."
Word. That is what I call "keeping it real".
"But of course, *you* do speak for Orthodoxy. Your voice counts for so much more. This free waving of the "h" word, this attitude of dismissal of fellow Orthodox (even ordained hierarchs) who dissagree, and this careful nursing of selected polemic concilliar canons are for me hallmarks of Athonism. Do you see no irony in dogmatizing what essentially amounts to anti-Catholic theologoumena?"
That for me is the clincher. It reminds me of the dictum of the ancient Pythagoreans: "Speak not of the divine things without light". The problem with the Internet is that it makes people too eager to do theology, when in reality very few are qualified and illumined enough to do it. And those who usurp for themselves the task often do it quite badly to their own detriment.
There is a reason why Christian theology has almost always been a clerical and monastic pursuit. That is why I continue to be hesitant regarding lay theologians. Those who do not continually strive for God and virtue in the radical sense of the evangelical counsels should really ask themselves if they are qualified to speak of the things of God. To cite Plotinus: "God without virtue is but a word".
My former spiritual father was the mitred archimandrite Anastassy (Newcomb): dean of the Old Cathedral in San Francisco of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. To say that he was friendly to Catholics was a bit of an understatement: he used to teach his Orthodox catechumens out of the Catechism of the Council of Trent. (He himself was a convert from Catholicism, a student of Georges Florovsky, and a collaborator with Fr. Seraphim Rose.) He had problems with some of the young Turks in his own diocese who accused him of heresy and the "demonic crime" of ecumenism. He just shrugged it off saying that he had been a priest and a monk on Mount Athos longer than they had been alive, and they were going to upbraid him for not being "Orthodox enough"?
So when these children in the Faith talk to me about being Orthodox, and boast in the fact that they know the gnomic will in St. Maximus Confessor backwards and forwards, I think of my deceased spiritual father, who explicitly told me NEVER to become Orthodox since I was already Catholic, and I just roll my eyes. As sweet old women are given to saying, "Ill pray for you."
Michael,
I don't claim to speak for Orthodoxy, but I do claim that this *does* in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy:
To those who do not deign to consent to the unaltered and unadulterated holy Symbol confessed by the Orthodox, that one, I mean, which was evangelically formulated by the First and Second Holy Synods and confirmed by the rest, but who rather amend it and distort it to support their own belief, thereby not only corrupting the synodal traditions of the Holy Fathers and of the holy and God-instructed apostles, but also the definitions of our true God and Saviour, Jesus Christ,
Anathema!
To those who do not confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds and has His existence from the Father with no intermediary in the same manner as the Son is begotten from the Father with no intermediary, according as God the Word Himself taught and as the Church has received from on high through the fathers, and who account as worthless the tradition of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ and accept impious and spurious doctrines which contend that the Son is related to the Father directly and with no intermediary, but that the Holy Spirit is distant and mediated, and who thus alienate the Holy Spirit from the Father's hypostasis and introduce some sort of interval and boundary between the Father and the All-holy Spirit, and so fall into the gulf of tritheism,
Anathema!
To those who undertake to teach contrary to our Master Christ and who declare that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, from the Son directly and with no intermediary, but indirectly from the Father and with an intermediary, that is, as the Son proceeds directly from the Father, so the Spirit proceeds from the Son; and to those who dare to say that the Son is the immediate cause of the Spirit while the Father is the removed cause, as though the Spirit were operatively from the Son but only potentially from the Father and who thus introduce degrees and successions of cause and effect in the simple and indivisible Trinity,
Anathema!
You can find those that confess and side with John Bekkos over against St. Gregory of Cyprus II, you can find those that confess and side with the Anti-Hesychasts against St. Gregory Palamas, but what exactly does that prove? It demonstrates that you aren’t interested in dialoguing with authentic Orthodoxy as contained in its synodal decrees, but rather with its detractors. It’s the same as if we were only interested in dialoguing with the Gallican’s and papal detractors instead of the Vatican dogma, for what have we then gained? Nothing, and really nothing.
Personally, I know Bishop Isaiah, I know St. Demetri of the South, and I know both men do not consider the question of the filioque to be one of Orthodoxy but of heterodoxy. In fact, I have yet to meet an Orthodox cleric who doesn’t think the filioque is heretical, which is why I take the *recommendation* in the North American meeting with a grain of salt. That doesn’t m
(continued)...
Personally, I know Bishop Isaiah, I know St. Demetri of the South, and I know both men do not consider the question of the filioque to be one of Orthodoxy but of heterodoxy. In fact, I have yet to meet an Orthodox cleric who doesn’t think the filioque is heretical, which is why I take the *recommendation* in the North American meeting with a grain of salt. That doesn’t mean that a cleric in the Orthodox Church, somewhere, doesn’t think that the filioque might be a theologoumenon, but I’m quite skeptical when folks that aren’t Orthodox claim to know more than those who have studied and prayed it for years now and are Orthodox.
I don’t claim to speak for anyone other than myself, but I do try to be faithful to what has been handed to me. I’ll let the readers decide who is faithful to Orthodoxy and who is not.
BTW—I’ve never argued against Azymymes, though I think they are wrong liturgically.
Now if you think the Orthodox canons can be read in accordance with what is in Florence, then more power to you, and I am hardly condemning such an endeavor if such is possible. But that has to be demonstrated, and that hasn’t been accomplished yet.
“[A]nd this careful nursing of selected polemic concilliar canons are for me hallmarks of Athonism”
This is nothing short of a double-standard. You can have all your dogmas that you wish, but we cannot. Do you not see hypocrisy in this statement? Either they are canons, or they are not, the same with your Trent or Vatican I (which are equally polemic by my lights).
Photios
"Otherwise, how to explain that the bulk of Orthodox were content to maintain faith with Western Christians for centuries during which azymitism and recitation of the filioque weere common."
This is not history, and Rome did not insert the filioque into the creed until around 1014 in which she was finally stricken from the Orthodox Diptychs. The first time that the East Romans had any contact with the Frankish filioque was in the Palestinian crisis of 810 from the Frankish pilgram monks that were living on Mount Olivet at the famous St. Sabbas monestery. This is the first open clash and discovery between the two groups that they recited a different creed and the frankish creed was rejected thoroughly by the East Romans. Usually, heresy's took on the name of a particular person, but in this case the East Romans termed it a sort of National Heresy, in which they did not know that the source of it was none-other than Augustine's speculations in De Trinitate. After the 8th Ecumenical Council 879/880 Pope John VIII wrote a letter to St. Photios that said basically that he would do his best to persuade the Franks to remove it from their creed. The Roumeli-Byzantine oikounomia was still quite in force well into the 9th century.
Hence, the Orthodox were not complacent to maintain faith with Western Christians with the addition. They had the hope that Rome would be successful, but she was not and eventually succumbed to the addition herself.
Photios
Two posts above: St. Deeitri should be Bishop Demetri.
Michael,
Lastly, it's not my purpose to come into these dialogues to call anyone a heretic. In fact, I have not done so. First, I draw a distinction between "heresy" and "heretic" that most moderns don't, and second, it only comes up as a side issue as to what authentic Orthodoxy is and what she thinks about different confessions. If I am wrong about the question of "Orthodoxy", then it needs to be demonstrated so, by the Fathers, the Councils, and Orthodoxy's representative theologians. Not by hear-say.
Photios
Tony M and Arturo:
I will never leave the barque of Peter, but I don't think it helps to whitewash obvious failures at the helm.
One of the reasons I'm unpopular among the older diocesan priests who know of me is precisely that I do not whitewash obvious failures at the helm. Both on this blog and face-to-face, I have been highly critical of the Catholic hierarchy: on homosexuality in the clergy; on the coverup of the sexual abuse of minors; on the supine toleration, beginning with Paul VI himself, of dissent from Humanae Vitae among clergy as well as laity; on the failure of the US bishops to unite in disciplining pro-abortion Catholic politicians; and of course on liturgy, about which I agree with then-Cardinal Ratzinger's brief but sharp and thinly veiled critique of the Missal of 1970. I could go on, but I've already cited more than enough to keep you busy for hours if you care to verify my claims for yourself.
I think you've lost sight of my aim in defending much of what the last two popes have done about liturgy and doctrine. My aim was to rebut Ben's charge that they have presided over the "pitiless extermination of the objective Catholic patrimony." That charge is much further from the truth than the far-more-common charge that they've been trying to bring back the "bad old days."
Best,
Mike
Christopher Orr:
To tar everyone who is against Roman Catholicism as "protestant" and having the common denominator of being 'anti-Roman' is to simply exhibit a rather unexamined obssession with self.
I don't think you can blame Diane for considering such rhetoric 'anti-Catholic', for indeed they are.
The fact that there are those Orthodox ecclesial authorities who in some instances have, in fact, deemed the Bishop of Rome as 'Satan'; one cannot ignore that this vile rhetoric is as insidiously viscious as those that come from the anti-Catholic Protestant variety who similarly subscribe to the same propaganda.
Yet, it's quite interesting that the Bishop of Rome does not return the same venom in his speeches but rather considers (and, in particular, had stated) our Orthodox brethren genuinely apostolic.
It is a position that betrays insularity and an assumption of self as the criteria - it is this Romano-centrism in lumping all non-Roman Catholic Christians together that I find fascinating and meant to point out at the start of all this.
Then, similarly, as you've pointed here to Diane, please do not assume your-'self' as the criteria as well, but rather take a more objective approach to the facts.
I cannot help but see your dismissive attitude toward the facts that Diane had previously presented other than being the very same act that you had criticized her for here.
Quite simply, if a known racist calls a black person "n-gg-r" and another person should utter something similarly; I hardly think that anybody with good sense, given the latter person's remarks, would dismiss that person as being a racist as well.
In the same vein, those Orthodox who have declared the Bishop of Rome 'Satan' are as 'anti-Catholic' as those Protestants who do.
This has nothing to do with the 'Self' here; but it has everything to do with the stated facts.
And, ironically, it appears that it is your 'Self' that has tarnished your objectivity in this regard since you've failed to even see this.
Photios,
I am not sure why I am pursuing this any further, as you are just proving my point, albeit with perhaps a tad more courtesy than the typical Internet anti-Catholic.
"I don't claim to speak for Orthodoxy, but I do claim that this *does* in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy:"
And what is exactly the dogmatic status of the Synodikon? And what is it supposed to mean? Is it a fair, objective and impartial representation of what Catholics actually believe? And even if it were (and it isn't), where does it explicitly describe the filioque as "heresy"? Schismatics are anathema as well; that doesn't make them ipso facto heretics.
"You can find those that confess and side with John Bekkos over against St. Gregory of Cyprus II, you can find those that confess and side with the Anti-Hesychasts against St. Gregory Palamas, but what exactly does that prove?"
Um, you tell me? What do *you* think it proves?
"It demonstrates that you aren’t interested in dialoguing with authentic Orthodoxy as contained in its synodal decrees, but rather with its detractors."
Let's be clear here. I am not arguing that there are pro-filioque Orthodox. I am arguing that not all Orthodox think the filioque is heresy. It's typical of anti-Catholics to try to occlude this important distinction. If you want to dialogue with me from the presupposition that the filioque is a wrong opinion, an abuse, an unauthorized interpolation, an obstacle to communion, or sloppy theology, then a meaningful give and takes on the subject is still possible.
If, on the other hand, I have to take as your point of departure factually incorrect presuppositions that 1) the filioque intends what *you* think it does, and not what *I* know and believe it does, 2) that the opinion that the filioque is heresy is actually binding on all Orthodox, and 3) that belief in the filioque is and always has been an insuperable bar to communion, then I am just confronted with ingrained anti-Catholicism. There are other less prejudiced Orthodox I can discourse with and actually learn something from.
"It’s the same as if we were only interested in dialoguing with the Gallican’s and papal detractors instead of the Vatican dogma, for what have we then gained? Nothing, and really nothing."
I would never even dream of describing Gallicanism anti-papal criticism as heresy. Gallicanism and critics of papal infallibility may be wrong, but that doesn't make them ipso facto heretics, or their beliefs heresy.
Let me quote from the entryon Gallicanism in the Catholic Encyclopedia from over 100 years ago printed at a time when the Ultramontane current in the Church was strongest:
"This term is used to designate a certain group of religious opinions for some time peculiar to the Church of France, or Gallican Church, and the theological schools of that country. These opinions, in opposition to the ideas which were called in France "Ultramontane", tended chiefly to a restrain
"And what is exactly the dogmatic status of the Synodikon?"
The status is that it is *dogmatic* because it is a written record of the Church's canons. It is codified in our liturgy and are sung at particular aspects of the liturgical calendar. The canons in question above are sung during Pentecost (in which I posted merely a few). These living canons don't get any more dogmatic in this respect as being a part of our worship of the Triune God.
If you don't think they are represetative then that is another question. I believe it is disingenuous to be making the distinction that the synodikon condemns those who believe in the filioque, which the synodikon addresses as both a *theological* and *canonical* issue (which can't be seperated anyways), are merely schismatic and not heretics, simply because the anathemas play the same way with monothelites, monophysites, and arians. They do not draw the distinction when discussing Arians, so you're distinction is artificial and should be rejected on that basis and doesn't fit well with how the Orthodox read anathemas as they relate to theological questions. You need to make an argument why you think this is the case rather than your sensibilities of dialoguing with Orthodox who don't want to conform their mind to these questions.
"I am arguing that not all Orthodox think the filioque is heresy. It's typical of anti-Catholics to try to occlude this important distinction."
And I have found that this line of argumentation isn't very helpful and is rather easily dislodged once theological inheritance is pointed out (e.g. Bulgakov's Sophiology).
Not all Catholics believe in transubstantiation or papal infallibility either. As I said, what exactly is being proven?
"I would never even dream of describing Gallicanism anti-papal criticism as heresy. Gallicanism and critics of papal infallibility may be wrong, but that doesn't make them ipso facto heretics, or their beliefs heresy."
You may not but that doesn't exempt them by Catholic lights from being in "material heresy." It really means is that you have different sensibility about the issue, and that's fine.
What this comes down to is that you and I have a different criterion and standard of truth, this can be seen by your designation of the "h" word. You are very concerned with modern sensibilities.
I think you should drop the "anti-Catholic" stuff, really, it's lowering the quality of the discussion. Notice that I’m not denigrating the dialogue by using specific names and ideologues of you. I mean you haven't been able to prove your point beyond assertion of your own sensibilities. You are bent on showing that I have a certain mind set, where as in reality, I'm just a guy making arguments. Whether you like them or not, is neither here nor there.
Photios
Photios,
You cite me: "Otherwise, how to explain that the bulk of Orthodox were content to maintain faith with Western Christians for centuries during which azymitism and recitation of the filioque were common."
And then state: "This is not history, and Rome did not insert the filioque into the creed until around 1014 in which she was finally stricken from the Orthodox Diptychs. The first time that the East Romans had any contact with the Frankish filioque was in the Palestinian crisis of 810 from the Frankish pilgram monks that were living on Mount Olivet at the famous St. Sabbas monestery. This is the first open clash and discovery between the two groups that they recited a different creed and the frankish creed was rejected thoroughly by the East Romans. Usually, heresy's took on the name of a particular person, but in this case the East Romans termed it a sort of National Heresy, in which they did not know that the source of it was none-other than Augustine's speculations in De Trinitate. After the 8th Ecumenical Council 879/880 Pope John VIII wrote a letter to St. Photios that said basically that he would do his best to persuade the Franks to remove it from their creed. The Roumeli-Byzantine oikounomia was still quite in force well into the 9th century."
Let's look at the chronology here as you present it:
1. 810 East becomes dismayed for first time by interpolation involving the filioque. It's unclear in your description who authoritatively describes the filioque as the "nationalistic heresy" at this time. Is there any demonstable breach of communion on the subject from the Eastern perspective with the Frankish Church? Is anyone even excommunicated?
2. 1014 Rome uses the filioque locally for the first time. The Pope is (yet again, for the umpteenth time) deleted from the Byzantine dyptichs (not the "Orthodox" ones unless you equate "Byzantine" with "Orthodox"). Is there any demonstrable breach of communion on the subject from the Eastern perspective? Is anyone even excommunicated?
Now I will add 3. 1190 (almost four centuries after the filioque dispute first appeared) Balsamon of Antioch declares a generalized breach of communion between East and West (the first, *ever*) citing the filioque and differing "customs", but with the proximate grounds essentially being his replacement as Patriarch by a Latin appointed by the crusaders. Balsamon doesn't even use the "h" word in his anathema, preferring the more ambiguous "alienation to the Orthodox".
So for 380 years, while contesting the filioque (with the occasional eruption of the "h" word from this or that angry hiereach or non authoritative local council), the East remained content (by your logic) to keep faith and communion with "heretics" (never formaly defined as such) in the forlorn hope the "heretical" West would see the error of its ways.
Such forebearance, were it genuine, would be truly heroic. The fact of the matter is th
Synodikon of Orthodoxy is chanted on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, I believe after Liturgy. (That's how we did it in my monastery, at least.) The original version was written around the time of the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 843. The parts that Mr. Jones cites were only added on later, after the schism with the West. It is very much a loaded document, since it has been altered and added on to through the centuries, and various countries have their own version of it. The ROCOR last century, for example, added on some anathemas against ecumenism and Freemasonry. If he is throwing around accusations of "theologoumena" all over the place, this is the least likely document to cite to make his case.
It is funny how Mr. Jones will thump on the Triodion yet fail to cite the Menaion when it comes to the feast of the Dormition of the Virgin. The following is from the Synaxarion read during the Canon of Matins at that feast, taken from Ephrem Lash's website:
"But when, by divine dispensation, one of the Apostles, who had been absent from the burial of the life-giving body, arrived on the third day, he was greatly grieved and distressed that he had not been found worthy of what they had. All his fellow Apostles, who had been found worthy, by a common vote opened the tomb for the sake of the Apostle who had been absent, so it seemed good to all, for him also to venerate that all-blameless body. When they looked they were amazed. For they found it empty of the holy body, and containing only the winding sheet, which remained as a consolation for those who were about to grieve and for all the faithful, and as a sure witness of the Translation. For even until today the tomb hewn from the rock is visible and venerated, and remains empty of a body, to the glory and honour of our most blessed Lady, Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary.
At whose holy intercessions, O God, have mercy and save us, as you are good and love mankind."
So according to Mr. Jones, one could stand in church and listen to that text and think to yourself, "that's just a bunch of pious rubbish" and still be Orthodox. It's funny, with all of his doctrinal minimalism (what is dogma and what isn't), he sounds much more like a Ludwig Ott or any other Catholic theologian than Orthodox. To paraphrase the thought of one hierarch, I thought the Orthodox Church existed to perform its liturgy. It's funny if that liturgy is full of unnecessary fairy tales that you don't have to believe. Sounds kinda legalistic to me.
So forgive me if I cry crocodile tears if Mr. Jones thinks that we are not "playing nice" and citing this, that, or the other. I knew from the start that the die that he's playing with are loaded. He will be the ultimate arbiter of what texts are authoritative and what aren't. He will determine what the rule of Orthodoxy is, and if we don't like it, we are just being bullies. That's why I refuse to play with him, and I wouldn't mind at this point if he picks up
Cont:
So forgive me if I cry crocodile tears if Mr. Jones thinks that we are not "playing nice" and citing this, that, or the other. I knew from the start that the die that he's playing with are loaded. He will be the ultimate arbiter of what texts are authoritative and what aren't. He will determine what the rule of Orthodoxy is, and if we don't like it, we are just being bullies. That's why I refuse to play with him, and I wouldn't mind at this point if he picks up his ball and goes home.
Photios stated: "These living canons don't get any more dogmatic in this respect as being a part of our worship of the Triune God."
Okay, wait a minute --
Somebody had previously remarked that your liturgy celebrates the assumption of the virgin mary & her sinlessness (e.g., dormition services); why all of a sudden this declaration that since this Synodikon is part of your worship, it doesn't get more dogmatic?
"These living canons don't get any more dogmatic in this respect as being a part of our worship of the Triune God."
Photios:
How is it that because the Syndikon was made part of your worship, it doesn't get any more dogmatic than this; however, when it comes to Mary, you say otherwise?
e,
That is very good question and I'm surprised it did not come sooner. First, the question, even if sung and true, is not one of dogmatic import because it is not central to the gospel of Christ. None of the Marian views are, except as Behr notes the Theotokos which has to do with Christology. In fact, none of the Marian views that we believe, the Assumption or the Ever-Virgin, are strictly of theoria, theology. They do not pertain attest to that radical experience of God or necessary or make sure our salvation. They are only of pious beliefs of the faithful about the blessed mother of our Lord. The question of the filioque is different matter for it threatens our very salvation in Christ. Once one confuses generation and procession and seeing these as operations of the Godhead, it threatens the reality of our union with God. Deification and becoming uncreate are impossible from this framework. Not to mention all of St. Photios dialectical arguments go through against the filioque and should be owned up as such, which we draw out in many places on my blog.
The other problem is that the Liturgy is not uniform on the question of Mary's Dormition, the Byzantine one is one among many (as already cited by Arturo) in which I referenced Shoemaker's thesis elsewhere.
"It is very much a loaded document, since it has been altered and added on to through the centuries, and various countries have their own version of it."
Of course it will be added on it as long as the Church is combatting heresies and feels the need to create additional canons to exclude other views.
Photios
"Synodikon of Orthodoxy is chanted on the Sunday of Orthodoxy"
Most of it, but not all of it is. Some parts are sung on the St. Gregory Palamas' feast the following Sunday and some is sung on the feast of Pentecost.
Photios
"In fact, none of the Marian views that we believe, the Assumption or the Ever-Virgin, are strictly of theoria, theology. They do not pertain attest to that radical experience of God or necessary or make sure our salvation."
Mr. Jones,
Seriously, I hate to say it, but someone has to tell you: you are the least Orthodox person I have ever enountered. Reading these things, one would think you converted to some form of Eastern Calvinism or something.
I have a good friend who is a priest in the ROCOR and just like you, a convert from Catholicism (and an ex-Marist seminarian). He used to serve in an Antiochene parish, and he said to me that the most profound theologian he had even met was the gardner of his parish. He said this because this humble Arab man, when asked a question about Christian things, could cite troparia, kontakia, and stichera at a drop of a hat, with much respect and devotion. For you to bring up some sort of bizarre "hierarchy of truths" argument makes you sound more like a modernist Catholic theologian than an Orthodox layman. Truth be told, I find it a little creepy.
Okay thanks Arturo. I think we can leave it that. I think on the question of Mariology, Behr agrees with me when we discuss issues of dogma, so does every other major theologian I've conversed with on this question, and dozens of other priests that I sought out many moons ago when I was a catechumen on this very question of the Assumption.
I'm not trying to impugn your belief in the Assumption. I believe it myself.
Photios
Arturo,
I wish that more folks had dialogued with your comments.
Are you familiar with the arguments made by the Armenian Orthodox writer Vigen Gurion made a few years back? If not you should google them. He makes essentially the same points that you do. He thinks, basically, that folks should stay in their own Christian traditions, and argues specifically that a person cannot really convert to Orthodoxy, particularly in the contemporary West. Of course, his views are more nuanced than this brief summary suggests.
After writing these views, he was rebutted by certain popular Orthodox writers. I happen to disagree with Gurion on this issue, but I was also largely disheartened by the rebuttals offered by those who publicly disagreed with him, as it seemed to me that they did not acknowledge that some of the problems he sees are indeed serious – and I have my strong suspicions that most of those who publicly disagreed with Gurion are among those who support the current media/pop-culture apparatus within American Orthodoxy which is planting and growing the mechanisms of religious consumerism in the American Orthodox churches – creating parallel parachurch organizations to those in their former Evangelicalism, etc., etc.
But, that said, some further thoughts:
In American Orthodoxy, the person who takes the Baptismal or Chrismation name of Barnasuphius is probably less likely to engage in the overt religious consumerisms which have come into American Orthodoxy than the Orthodox who takes the Chrismation name Daniel or Mark, etc. Likewise, converts who actually make prostrations in their prayer corners on a daily basis are generally less engaged in the religious consumer posture than those who think that listening to Ancient Faith Radio from 9 to 9:15 each night qualifies as a prayer rule. You seem to imply that the only choices are a pious “faking it” or some version of drunken Mayan nominalism. That strikes me as rather narrow. Further, you, per your usual rhetorical route, contrast the earthy authenticity to be found within Latino religion with the fake banality of white people seeking religious authenticity. That’s fine – the drunk Mayan may well appropriate his religion in a less consumeristic manner and a less self conscious manner. But here is where I think you miss the point. In the context of middle class America – it does not matter. You made a deliberate choice to return to the RCC, and your own history shows that you had options. I made a deliberate choice to become Orthodox. You have the memory of your days with the SSPX, your days in an Eastern Catholic monastery, your grandmother’s unselfconscious spirituality, etc., but, your children will be considerably farther removed from that than you. And their children will face religious choices no differently than mine. Both you and I chose where we go to church. We chose among options. Gurion’s children chose to remain Oriental Orthodox or they did not.
...Did they marry Armenian Orthodox spouses? If they do not what religious faith do they raise their children in? In today’s America for those not living in poverty, the choice of religion is a consumer choice. There are many different religions that would like you to join them, and the vast majority of them advertise. Most of them are now branded in some fashion, including both the RCC and Orthodoxy. [The Mayans have less religious consumerism because they currently have fewer choices. As you well know, the vast majority of poor folks in Latin America want what we have on all consumenivor fronts – and with time, many of them will have much more of it anyway, or so it seems.]
I think that such religious branding is a bad and dangerous situation, but, I think, to say that in such a consumeristic context one cannot authentically pursue God is to deny the Holy Spirit. To say that one can only authentically remain in the tradition one was born in denies the fact that everyone now makes deliberate consumer style choices with regard to their faith. I do not see the manner in which you describe your return to your former and current faith as any less potentially stylized as the Barnasuphius in his prayer corner. There is such a thing as a stylization of the “common man, unstylized, takes what is in front of him sort of fellow.”
Furthermore, where are middle class white folks to turn? The Mainline Protestantism or Evangelicalism from whence they came? The Emergent Church? It seems to me that you acknowledge a certain cultural fakeness in middle class white culture – but you do not take that to its logical end. Mainline Protestantism, Evangelicalism, and the Emergent Church – all of this is anti-culture. To stay or to go to one of these places is no less a “fake” thing for the middle class white (or anyone else) than to go to the RCC or Orthodoxy. And then to say that he cannot authentically go to the RCC or to Orthodoxy is to, essentially, damn him. Is that your intent? I find it confusing that it is OK and apparently authentic for you to love Stephen Reich and Philip Glass (about as white an intellectual love as one can find) but it apparently must be fake for poor Barnasuphius to make his prostrations. Or is it OK for white Barnasuphius to become Orthodox so long as he states no reasons for doing so? Is it even better if he apologizes for his conversion, and goes by the name Barney?
Then, what of dogma? Is it not possible that a middle class white fellow could come to the sincere conviction that Orthodoxy teaches that which is true concerning God, creation, and mankind? Must that conviction always be a pretence? If he does arrive at a sincere conviction is it not appropriate for him to convert? And what if he is as most of us – a complex mix of sincerity and arrogant posturing or fanciful faux-reflection? Is his conversion invalid unless it reaches some point of sincerity purity? Where do we draw the line? Well, I
...Well, I think, you and I would agree that we don’t draw the line. But then I do not understand your repeated comments (here and elsewhere) about Barnasuphius and his kind.
I think with Daniel M. that to stay in one’s tradition is fine when one has no conviction to go elsewhere, or mistrusts the winds of apparent “conviction” in one’s mind. But I must say that I have never read another Catholic articulate an understanding of Catholicism that is more in keeping with Orthodox dogma and praxis than Daniel’s articulation of his faith. Daniel and Moretben, whom I have elsewhere dubbed “neo-trads,” are not (was not in Ben’s case) your run of the mill trads. One of them remains a trad Cath who thinks like an Orthodox, the other has become Orthodox. That is of note, anyway.
The frequent rolling of your eyes is evident in your writing. Your spiritual father told you not to convert to Orthodoxy because you were already Catholic. Perhaps he had other reasons as well. I have two friends who Fr. Hopko told not to convert to Orthodoxy. One assumed reasons akin to those you ascribe to your spiritual father. But I have every reason to believe that it has more to do with the fact that Fr. Hopko knew that neither of them believed Orthodox dogma and praxis in an Orthodox manner, indeed neither was even moving in that direction.
You, frequently, cite your spiritual father as your authority vis-à-vis Orthodoxy, but many of us Orthodox have Orthodox spiritual fathers, indeed some of us monastic Orthodox fathers who spent many years on Athos, who recommend to us an understanding of Orthodoxy in line with that articulated by Photius here. Indeed, there is no question that the vast majority of monastics and clerics who speak concerning theological matters having to do with an Orthodox understanding of Roman Catholicism speak in a manner far more in line with what Photius has written here than what you state your spiritual father told you concerning Rome. Orthodoxy is not a democracy, but your spiritual father’s quirks may not be relevant to the rest of us.
You dismiss and deride “lay theologians,” and we all assume you mean Perry and Photius among such, but in doing so you present yourself as having the spiritual maturity to know not to act in manner you clearly think so spiritually immature. But in the end I cannot possibly see how trading internet lay theologian (a role which both Perry and Photius would deny having) for lay spiritual aesthete is in any way less arrogant. Yes, you are earthy, you are authentic in a manner we white folks can never be, you have Orthodox credentials straight out of Athos, and you understand the great wisdom that all of us have no greater faith or piety than a bunch of drunk Mayans. But, where then do we go?
Perry and Photius are interested in arguments. Others here are interested in arguments. You are above the arguments, but throw in a few popular quotes from your neo-Platonists to let us know
...but throw in a few popular quotes from your neo-Platonists to let us know you can hang with the big guns – though you would not steep to actually present an argument to Perry or Photius. Got it. You have an intimate history with monasticism which gives you a certain posture of authority; I still chuckle about the time you once told me with reference to a comment made by an eastern Catholic monk who disagreed with me “that is why he is a monk and you are not.” Thus those of us who are not monks are best to keep our mouths such about such things, but you, not a monk, are apparently just in telling us that we should keep our mouths shut about such things. Lay theologizing is bad, lay theologizing about how lay theologizing is bad is not bad. Got it.
I have met Perry. I found him to be disarming, friendly, interested in others and their points of view, even, believe it or not, rather humble for a young academic, and quite likable. Would I want to formally debate him? Absolutely not. He is trained to do just that, and is quite competent at it, as is Mike L. I know several cradle priests and educated laypeople who admire his work. The cradle priests at his GOArch parish, the largest in the United States (full of mostly Greeks), consider him Orthodox enough to teach their teenage children the basics of the faith. I have discussed the work of Perry and Photius with perhaps a dozen cradle Orthodox and not one of them brought up concerns about their convertitis, overzealousness, spiritual delusion, white middle class angst, desperate overreaching for authenticity, lack of qualification to speak what they believe to be the Orthodox tradition, or anything like this. I imagine that there are such Orthodox who believe such things of Perry and Photius, of course, perhaps a few in New England. That a former SSPX, former eastern Catholic novice, former Anglican, current novus ordo Catholic who used to be but no longer is so much bothered by defenses of RCism, and is very bothered by intellectual defenses of Orthodoxy, thinks that their work is nothing more than “what white convert Orthodox people like” spiritual hubris that does not represent the “real” Orthodoxy you learned from your spiritual father you were never in communion with and which you discern from the earthy meditations on drunken Mayans, well, that would cause me to roll my eyes, but, my parents used to spank me as a child when I rolled my eyes so I don’t do that. I know, I know, how utterly bourgeois to have had parents who disciplined me – I must be in the ranks of the great white hopeless. In any event, I see all this as just another Roman Catholic playing the arbiter of who is and who is not really Orthodox, without making an argument or laying out serious criteria. Such is a favorite pastime of some.
It is interesting to note that the trad Orthodox Barnasuphius, the Evangelical-Rite Orthodox convert Conciliar Press reader, the average ethnic GOArch priest under the ag
....the average ethnic GOArch priest under the age of 45, your average St. Tikhon’s seminarian cradle or convert, and for certain the bulk of your spiritual father’s ROCOR, priest and faithful, cradle and convert, all these basically agree with Romanides’ arguments, more than less anyway – but it is so convenient to simply focus on your Barnasuphius, even though you don’t understand enough of American Orthodoxy to know that in him you have morphed together several distinctly different “styles” of converts to Orthodoxy. So be it. This is the point where you usually say your bit about how we are not supposed to take what you write on the internet seriously. Got that too.
Owen,
Yes, I admit, theologizing about not theologizing is a nasty habit, and theologizing without light is worse. I am indeed one to talk, and maybe I shouldn't be in this conversation at all. Maybe I am just affirming something that I feel uneasy about. I'll admit that. In truth, on my own page, you will find very little "theology" proper, and that is why you will find few polemical threads like this one.
On the other hand, I thought pointing out someone's inconsistent use of Orthodox liturgical texts was an argument. If it's not, I guess I don't know how to argue.
Maybe I was mistaken about Orthodoxy in the first place. I fell in love with its liturgy and liturgical theology. Fr. Anastassy was a liturgist. The monk who formed me most in the monastery was also a liturgist. I wish that we Roman Catholics would take our liturgy as seriously as the Orthodox I have met. If liturgy is less important than I thought it was, so be it. I won't tell you how to be Orthodox.
Owen, I can't help but think that you completely misunderstood my comment about drunken Mayans. I don't think at any point I articulated any idea that First World people are any less or more authetic than they are. If anything, I thought I was pointing out their faults. I wasn't in any way idealizing them. Pointing out differences on why people convert or don't convert isn't a value call, nor is it even theology. It is religious sociology. I think you are reading in too much of our biography together than is actually there.
Anyway, to be consistent with my own principals then, I will bow out. Have fun, you guys...
That charge is much further from the truth than the far-more-common charge that they've been trying to bring back the "bad old days."
Thank you for this dose of sanity, Mike.
Arturo, I love you, and I generally agree with your views, even the quirky ones, but honestly...we non-traddies are NOT whitewshing anything. We are simply recognizing that neither Pope John Paul the Great nor his successor is the Overbearing Dishpot / Great Papal Bogeyman of lurid anti-Catholic fantasies. The Barque of Peter is one heap big boat; it takes a while to turn it around; and it's unrealistic to expect otherwise. Would you really want a despotic pope who micromanages the Church on the parish level (a logistical impossibility) and smacks down every eensy liturgical abuse? What is the pope supposed to be -- Big Brother?
Yes, I knoe that's a caricature of your views (for rhetorical effect ), but seriously...Mike L. is perfectly correct. The trend is overwhelmingly in a positive direction. Good things are happening. Be patient, young Skywalker. And, in the meatime, thank you for your cogent responses to Och, Daniel, et al.
God bless,
Diane
"If liturgy is less important than I thought it was, so be it. I won't tell you how to be Orthodox."
I think it is just as important to us as you thought it was. It's just that we aren't caught up with everything being infallible like RCism is. Not every single thing that we pray in the liturgy needs to meet the requirements of infallibility to be believed or prayed, nor the*condition* of infallibility be the basis for the prayers possible exclusion either, something can be "traditional" without necessarily being infallible. I think this explains alot why you guys felt that you could change your liturgy since it was the "words of institution" as the bear minimum of what is required of a "valid" liturgy, the other aspects can be changed sense they aren't by definition "infallible."
I answered your charge of inconsistency.
all these basically agree with Romanides’ arguments
Which may have something to do with the fact that Orthodoxy is small and getting smaller...and how this squares with the Biblical picture of the great throng which no man could nuimber is beyond me...but no matter. As long as one can have one's crabbed little cluster of anti-everybody-else curmudgeons, then what the heck?....
"As long as one can have one's crabbed little cluster of anti-everybody-else curmudgeons, then what the heck?"
Diane,
Sometimes I don't know whether to ignore you in the hope that you won't go down this path of ad hom, or to reason with you that such doesn't really do any good. Honestly, which one would you like?
Look, I think you have a lot of good things to say at times, but really, it's not the end of the world that people disagree with you. Take a deep breath, relax. We aren't as mean and nasty as you think we are and we don't care or are offended if you quote a hundred or so Fathers that you think show a different picture than what we believe or how we read them. And you can argue "tough" all you want with me (I certainly do myself quite a bit), but we're not a bunch of cranky old folks as you suggest that hate life and hate the world and hate everybody in it, or even hate the past that we come from.
As far as Fr. Romanides goes, he's not as bad as people thinks he is, after all he was Fr. Florovsky's greatest protege and under the spiritual tutelage of a real hesychast (Fr. Philotheos Zervakos). Sure, some of Romanides' views of Augustine are a lil dated, but to understand Fr. Romanides' alarm you have to contextualize his work with the "nationalism" of Greek Orthodoxy and of Orthodoxy in general, not to mention the particular "scholasticism" of the Zoe where he did his doctrinal dissertation.
Photios
Photios: I appreciate your dilemma, but I'm afraid I do not share it. I always know whether to ignore your novel-length posts.
Christopher Orr, if I may advert again to your remark about the hot girl at the bar saying "no, no, no": I was wondering...can you show me where in Scripture or Tradition the True Church of Christ is represented as a hot girl saying "no, no, no"? And, in particular, how does this portrait of the Church square with Our Lord's solemn, anguished prayer "that they all may be one"?
Thanks very much in advance!
Diane
Arturo,
But you have, here and elsewhere told Orthodox folks how unOrthodox they are, which is something a way of telling a person how to be Orthodox. It is what you do.
I forgot Fr. Anastassy, the other of your "Orthodox" credentials. You might keep in mind two things. Eastern Catholics are not Orthodox, some articulate their faith in an Orthodox manner, most do not. We Orthodox "use" Robert Taft and company as needed, but generally with some reservation. This is for obvious reasons. But then there is the more important point. When you refer to two intellectual themes in which you were formed by Fr. Anastassy and others during your time in the Christian East, you make something quite evident in so doing: you were clearly taught by and accept the teaching of those who accepted the theories of previous generations of scholars regarding the relationship of Orthodoxy to Platonism/neoplationism, and, you accept and adhere to historical-critical theories of previous generations with regard to the development of the Liturgy. Regardless of the relationship between these schools and Orthodoxy, the academy itself has changed on both these counts. In the constant swing of things academic, in the last generation the scholarship has swung toward an increasing understanding of just how much various and sundry of the fathers long associated as Platonists were actually writing and thinking in contrast to Platonism - and on the liturgical historical front we have seen most of the major theories of the pervious generations of historical liturgists either effectively dismissed or seriously called into question. Even the glorious Dix has fallen. I would say that there is probably less confidence regarding what we know (academically speaking) of the development of the Liturgy now than there was in 1950. This is true at least in rhetorical posture, anyway. But with regard to both these issues, you make points you learned from Fr. Anastassy and company, points which are often enough now dated, as if they are matter of fact truth. It is clear that you have not read much of the recent literature on either front, and you seem to have a "been there, done that" confidence that excuses you from the works others suggest. Fr. Behr's work which Photius suggests would stand in contrast to the tone and content you have described as coming from Fr. Anastassy, but I doubt you will ever read Behr. Why do so, when all that you need to know is already known.
You contrasted the Mayan capacity to go Pentecostal in a less consumeristic manner with the general Prot tones. You brought up the book of Mormon and anyone who reads your work knows that Mormonism is for you entirely tied up with issues of class and race, as it probably should be. You have consistently written about how heady convert Catholicism and heady or pop-mystic convert Orthodoxy is linked to anglo middle class demographics. It is not "our biography" that is primarily the issue here, i
...t is the wieght of your own writing. You may not take it seriously, you may be bothered when others take it seriously, but when you present yourself as an authority on Orthodoxy and types of Orthodox converts and their ways of thinking, it might serve some good for someone to reflect on the tensions found in your own work.
Again, Owen, where the heck are you getting this stuff? Fr. Anastassy did not talk to me at all about Plato or anything else academic. The other monk in question recently had obtained his doctorate in liturgy, and he echoed your sentiment that we know less about liturgy now than we did fifty years ago. If I have begun studying ancient philosophy, it has nothing to do with Orthodoxy.
All of what you write about me makes those words of that song come to mind:
"You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you."
And when you go on about my citation of the Maya Indians, again, you are stubbornly reading into it something that isn't even there.
"Even so, people there often convert because they consider it a means of social and economic advancement, as well as mutual aide."
Tell me, what part of that did you not understand? People in other places might convert for shallow reasons. People here might convert for shallow reasons. What is so controversial about that?
Owen, I am flattered that you know "my work" so well, and by all means keep reading it. But if you think that all that I write is gunning for the white man, you grossly underestimate me. You Orthodox can do whatever you want, I could care less. But if you start pointing out things that are distorted or simply not true, don't be suprised if people come to correct you. And try not to read motives into it that really aren't there.
Owen,
One more thing. If you have a problem with what I write or think on my own blog, you are more than welcome to post something there instead of dragging out in other fora where such things have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Such behavior smells of "stalker" and "obsessive", and neither makes anyone look good.
if I may advert again to your remark about the hot girl at the bar...
Well, I was joking and using an 'earthy' example, so we probably shouldn't take this too far.
I would point to the history of the Church that very clearly stood against various heresies and errors that arose in her midst. I would point first to Acts dnt the situation with Ananias and his wife Sapphira as well as Simon Magus. But, since I am no longer a Protestant, I would point as much or more to the history of the Church and her fight against Arianism, adoptionism, Nestorianism, etc.
The Lord wants us to be one, and the Lord wants the Church big, but not at the expense of the truth. Otherwise, we are in danger of syncretism and relativism replacing God Himself with the great modern god Diversity. I would point to the same examples from Acts to point to how the Lord is not always soft and fuzzy with those in error, even those already in or wishing to join the Church.
"Which may have something to do with the fact that Orthodoxy is small and getting smaller...and how this squares with the Biblical picture of the great throng which no man could nuimber is beyond me...but no matter. As long as one can have one's crabbed little cluster of anti-everybody-else curmudgeons, then what the heck?...."
Diane,
We are both tussling with the same folk, but really... This sort of remark doesn't help. Even if true, remember that in the end times, most of the faithful will fall away. So pointing to numbers doesn't prove anything and just makes the other side more "curmudgy".
Ultimately, the corporate reunion we long for can only be a function of mutual respect and acknowledgement of the legitimacy of our differences, authentically and correctly understood. If our interlocutors are not there yet(and many never will be), needling them is not going to move them any closer.
Actually, Potios' citing of the Synodikon gives me fresh hope. One can only roll one's eyes at its implicit interpretation of the filioque. If I thought the filioque meant what the anathemas suggest it means, I would be chanting along as well.
This reinforces my perception (apparently one that our host shares) that on a number of issues, some Orthodox apologists (especially of the anti-Catholic variety) simply do not understand what Catholics believe.
So let's stick to substance. Triumphalism may be satisfying, but it isn't pretty.
Michaël
Micheal,
Thank you for the acknowledgement of emphasizing the point of departure for the discussion as being only relevant to substance.
As a side note, I'm only using the Synodikon in this context as to the relevance to the filioque in its own particular historical context and as to clarify the dogmatic grounds of how the Orthodox view the question of the filioque. Does this make sense? In other words, I believe the filioque interpretation is not exactly uniform but takes on many shapes. And we haven't gotten to the full shape of it as this relates to the Florentine dogma and the subsequent traditions defense of that definition and as well as the new interpretation that takes shape with modern Catholic theologians. Our host, Mike Liccione, has a very unique interpretation that he has garnered from Catholic theologians like Thomas Weinandy. In fact, Mike and I, don't discuss his unique interpretation as much anymore because he has dropped the idea that the Son is a cause of the Spirit, but rather the Son's personal existence being simply a necessary condition for Spiration. Mike's view is not uniform and so I wait to see how that plays out, and secondly, he still has an ambiguity in his view to still work through because Florence says that the Father and the Son both spirate the Spirit as "one principle" and "one spiration" which seems to imply that they share a non-personal unity ("the son shares all that the Father has") that the Spirit does not share.
Furthermore, Mike and I have seen ourselves as an unusual ally on this topic as he took much criticism from his co-religionists for dropping the idea of Son as cause or principle in one of his posts here a while back.
I'm hardly naiive when it comes to the filioque doctrine (as the host here would I think agree) and have tried to read everything I can on the topic when I was working on this subject as part of my thesis but had to drop it due to taking on other duties in my life.
Photios
Photios:
Mike and I, don't discuss his unique interpretation as much anymore because he has dropped the idea that the Son is a cause of the Spirit, but rather the Son's personal existence being simply a necessary condition for Spiration.
I appreciate your willingness to entertain my ideas, but your description of my position is not entirely accurate. Although a combox already containing more than 100 entries is not the place to carry on this discussion further, I thought I'd correct your misimpression now so that our future discussions elsewhere, if and when we hold them, can proceed on a clearer basis.
First, my position takes for granted three things: the truth of the definitions of Lyons and Florence on the filioque; the truth of the main assertions of the Vatican's 1995 white paper on the filioque (a document you know well); and the logical compatibility of the Lyons-Florence definitions with the "monarchy of the Father." As the historical record of discussion shows, the bishops who signed on to the Florentine definition of the filioque accepted that compatibility, else they could not have signed on in good conscience. Said compatibility is also implied by CCC 248.
Second and accordingly, the sole question that concerns me is how the two doctrines are compatible. The hard work I've undertaken in treating the filioque issue is for the sake of answering that question.
[continued below]
The key step is to recognize the polyvalence of the Latin word causa. If the two doctrines are compatible, then the Son cannot be understood to be a "cause" of the Spirit in the sense of ekpoureusis—a kind of causation which, ad intra, belongs solely to the Father. So, assuming that the Son is, with the Father, a "cause" of the Spirit, that must be in at least one sense of causa other than that of ekpoureusis. The Latin theological tradition recognizes many senses of the term causa, e.g. the "four causes" postulated by Aristotle. The main conclusion I've reached is that, in order to get at the relevant sense of causa, it must be recognized that the two Trinitarian processions are somehow mutually interdependent. Conceptually speaking, if two activities A and B depend on each other, then there's a sense of 'cause' in which the products of A and B respectively are causes of each other. In the present case, it follows that there's a sense in which spirituque is as true as filioque, and it's that consequence which irritates my Latin brethren. So, given the traditional taxis of Father, Son, and Spirit, what I need to work out is the sense in which filiation has a certain priority over spiration. From that standpoint, even though both spirituque and filioque are true, the mutual interdependence of filation and spiration is asymmetrical, with the former having priority over the latter.
My work is far from complete even in conception because I haven't been able to give much thought to the asymmetricality I feel obliged to acknowledge. I'm not working in the dark; I've read a number of Fathers and Doctors of the Church, both East and West, on the subject. I pray about this. But I'm not sure that the effort involved in going further would be worthwhile. It seems to me that the effort would be worthwhile only given insight into the inner life of the Trinity that I'm not sure anybody can reasonably claim to have. So, all I've tried to do is sketch out a logical space where the dogmatic affirmations of East and West can be understood as mutually compatible. I think I've made some modest progress on that.
Best,
Mike
Michael de V, you are quite right. I was letting my irritation get the better of me. But really, that hot-girl-in-the-bar thing struck me as un peu de trop.
I appreciate your point about the end-times remnant. But OTOH don't you think small and shrinking numbers may also reflect a deficient missiology and other negative factors? It's not just a function of "small but pure."
Also, I think that triumphalism is one of those demon-words--like "ultramontane"--which is not particularly helpful, either. If my Orthodox brethren are telling me how spiritually and doctrinally superior they are, I think it's relevant to ask them, in turn, why such superiority has not translated into robust growth or a truly catholic ecclesial makeup ("a great throng which no man could number, from every race, tribe, and tongue").
You are quite right that I should have phrased this less offensively. But, in the light of the extremely triumphalist (that word again!) Orthodox claims made in this forum, I do think the question needs to be asked. Perhapos someone else can ask it more diplomatically than I. But IMHO the basic question is: If you're so superior to the rest of us--if you're the hot girl in the bar--then how come so few suitors seem to be hitting on you? Who is it that you're saying "no, no, no" to?
OK, I'm in hot water again. Diplomacy is not my strong suit, and that's the understatement of the millennium.
Diane
Photios,
The reason Mike may or may not have a rare or even unique perspective regarding the relationship between the three Persons is that the Church doesn't have a complete, precise and comprehensive teaching on this relationship, which remains a mystery.
It may well be that *some* pious Catholics have understandings of the relationship which Orthodox could legitimately consider heterodox. It may even be that the filioque contributes to confusion among some, or even many, Catholics as to what the Church actually intends. The formulation is not beyond criticism on such grounds.
In my experience, however, Orthodox try to put too much meaning on the words. By this I don't mean to say too much "importance" (we are talking about the Creed, after all). I mean they are reading more into these particular words than Catholicism intends or ever intended.
The key difficulty lies in the word "proceeds" translated from what appears to be technical Greek theological terminology, where it more conventionally means "draws its origin from". This may well have been what the Greek fathers intended in the original Greek in the non-interpolated versions of the Creed. The Latin verb (and its Englsih cognate), however, is less precise. It does not carry a necessary implication of "origination". In the same way in relation to a trip I will shortly be taking to Europe, I might say that I will *proceed* to Paris [from London], without in any way wishing to imply that I *originate* from London.
When asked what the Catholic Church teaches regarding the specific nature of Christ's participation in the procession of the Holy Spirit, I can only point to the Church Fathers from both East and West who state that the Spirit proceeds "from the Father, through the Son". Any further than this is just pious speculation. My understanding of the "single spiration" terminology of Florence is that the procession as a whole is understood as a single, and not a two-step process, as it were. I stand to be corrected by Catholics here of greater theological sophistication than myself.
Now, just because the filioque is both true and defensible does not put it beyond criticism.
Is it theologically confusing? Apparently.
Could it allow for heretical interpretation? Possibly, but so then does the Creed as a whole.
Could the mind of the Church have been better expressed? Almost certainly.
Was the formalization of the interpolation an act of violence to the unity of the Church? Conceded.
Was the interpolation expedient? Ultimately, no.
Should the West drop the interpolation? In my view, not if this means repudiating the authentically intended meaning. If the East were to allow that the interpolation is not heterodox, then I could see removing it from the Western liturgy, if this were the last remaining bar to reunion. If there are no prospects for reunion, however, I don't see why Catholics should bother. It's not my decisi
"In the present case, it follows that there's a sense in which spirituque is as true as filioque, and it's that consequence which irritates my Latin brethren."
I understand Mike, but it was your strong insistance on the Monarchy of the Father that led you to think that it is the Father in VIRTUE of being Father of the Son, that excluded the double procession sense of Uncaused-Cause and Mediated Cause. And it was also this insistance that also bothered *some* of your Latin brethen and not just spirituque.
Most of what you were arguing against is the doctrine that was taught to me as a Catholic by Latin theologians. That was certainly how Balas understood it, and he's no dumby.
"As the historical record of discussion shows, the bishops who signed on to the Florentine definition of the filioque accepted that compatibility."
They didn't have your interpretation Mike or saw that compatibility but rather the First Principle and Derivative Principle kind of Monarchy moving in a straight line (Yves Congar), I think you know that, which is why I think you still need to work out how the Father and Son are "one principle," and the Spirit not also be "one principle."
Causa is not really the term that the Latins use to describe the relation, but rather principle. Causa is used more of how God relates to creation if I'm not mistaken. So when we say "cause" we mean ekpoureusis. Proienai is a type of cause, but not a relation of origin, or express the uniqueness of hypostatic origination. It is within THIS CONTEXT I see your interpretation being the greatest benefit.
I applaud you for your interpretation and as we go along I'm having a harder time distinguishing your view of the Monarchy from St. Photios and the relation between the Son and the Spirit by St. Gregory of Cyprus II, which you are sensitive in recognizing are paramount to us Orthodox.
Photios
Diane,
The Church is human as well as divine, and thus not impeccable. Orthodox could equally ask why, if Western Catholicism is so superior, did such a large part of its former heartland succumb first to heresy and now apostasy, and why the New World is on the cusp of doing so as well.
I think any sensible Orthodox would admit that Catholicism does the missionary "thing" better. This isn't the sole mark of the Church, however.
If you find the tactics of your opponents crude and unfair, you should still hold the high ground and hope their conscience gets the better of them in the end. That said, you don't have to roll over. If their tactics are unacceptable, it's fair to point it out.
I, for one, am still waiting for an explanation of how calling the Pope a "two-horned Satan" is not really a manifestion of anti-Catholicism. I could also add Photios' (the patriarch's) remarks regarding Westerners generally, describing them as "forerunners of apostasy, servants of Antichrist who deserve a thousand deaths, liars, fighters against God." I guess that was just charitably telling-it-like-it-is as well, and not a manifestation of anti-Catholicism either.
Michaël
"My work is far from complete even in conception because I haven't been able to give much thought to the asymmetricality I feel obliged to acknowledge. I'm not working in the dark..."
I know you aren't and I acknowledge your assymetry. Though there is an aspect to the economy which violates the usual taxis order or rather acknowledges the assymetry of that order. I subtly argue for what you expressed here in that regard previously in my paper on Gregory of Nyssa. One must be able to fit together these unique things from the Fathers:
(1) The Father as sole cause and originator of Son and Spirit *as* relation of origin (one by genesis, the other by ekpoureusis). - St. Photios
(2) The taxical order of the Persons coming forth: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, expressing their consubstantiality - Sts. Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius, Maximus the Confessor
(3) The Spirit rests in the Son as his object, the Son's existence from the Father is the Sprits aim for Spiration. - St. Gregory of Cyprus II
(4) The Spirit as bond of love between Father and Son, because it is this bond of love as the energy of the Spirit that is common to all. - St. Gregory Palamas, St. Augustine, St. Gregory of Cyprus II. This is how the Gregory's interpret Augustine anyway.
What doesn't fit well here is the Carolingian and Scholastic view of 'relations of opposition' since there is no step of two-ness in the Trinity, and dialectic can only consider two and not three.
Photios
Michael, you make an excellent point. I apologize for not taking the high ground, and I commend you and the other Catholics here for doing so.
Thanks!
Diane
High ground talk always bothers me, not just in this or other religious contests. It always seems like such a rhetorical cop out, a pose to score points. I've got no problem with people critiquing Orthodoxy, heck, doing the same is how I became Orthodox. It's when critiques are simply flung at Orthodoxy in drive by fashion with no expectation that there could possibly be a follow-up point or conversation that could add anything of value to what the flinger has already thought through.
I much prefer RCs that simply state the Orthodox are heretical schismatics. Stick to your guns, assume all your assumptions - we all have them, they are the basis of choice and opinion for fallen humanity. Similarly, I appreciate the no nonsense naming of enemies of salvation by whomever cares about salvation. So, if a traditional Protestant sees the Pope and the errors of the RCC to be Antichrist and sinful, name it so, unashamedly. If Orthodox see the Pope as also placing himself and his office in the place reserved for Christ alone, well, this seems pretty demonic to me. I'm sure other examples of RC and papal pronouncements of similar tone can be found regarding non-Catholics in the not so distant past; one can likely find even more in documents still officially held by the RCC, regardless of whether the last couple Popes have been more circumspect (or PR conscious, depending on one's perspective of the papacy).
So, I expect people that are not Catholic to be anti-Catholic. I expect those not Orthodox to be anti-Orthodox. I expect unbelievers to be anti-religious. Everything on the up and up. I prefer them to be consciously rather than reflexively so, able to enunciate their reasons thus showing they love God and/or the truth, however much in error they may be. I also expect them to be polite, not discriminating against others (there is no virtue when there is no choice), not trying to kill me or mine, and open to either having a conversation with the Other or to refraining from such conversation in polite company, as appropriate.
I much prefer RCs that simply state the Orthodox are heretical schismatics.
But, Christopher....Why should we state that when we don't believe it? The official Catholic position is that Orthodoxy is in schism, not heresy. We care about distinctions like that, because we are actually interested in Christian unity.
I must confess...I fail to appreciate the polemicists' point that we should draw distinctions as sharply as possible, because presumably disunity is so much fun; hardening the lines means we Really Really Care about Truth and all that. (Anent this: This a.m. I was reading the reversion story of a guy who went through strict Baptist fundamentalism and even stricter Calvinism en route back home to the Catholic Church. His descriptions of the Independent Fundamental Baptists' rants against Rome--and against everybody else outside their eensy circle--reminded me of some of the EO polemics I have encountered on the Internet. In all such cases, a somewhat warped view of Truth(TM) trumps Love...and leads the polemicists to not even *try* to understand the other guy's POV, to not even *seek* common ground, even though common ground may indeed exist.
If that's what you're asking of us papists--that we take a hard-line polemical stance--then I'm afraid we can't oblige. Nope, not even un-diplomatic moi. Sorry!
Diane
Diane,
Does the recognition of heresy equal polemics? If it does, are polemics then necessarily bad? Was Chalcedon wrong to proclaim that Eutyches was a heretic? How about St. John of Damascus calling the Monophysite church "Severens" ? Or how about the monothelites? Pyrrhus of Constantinople? Was Athanasius wrong to not seek common ground with Arius? I agree with you that common ground should be recognized if there indeed is, but Orthodoxy hasn't recognized it as such on some very key issues. Rome thinks otherwise, and I can respect your attitude because your following Rome's protocol. But you need to respect that we don't see things the way you or Rome necessarily does. Your branding a title of "polemicist" to your opposition as a kind of stifling tactic to silence them and play off the sensibilities of those around you.
Photios
Daniel:
Of course the recognition of heresy is not polemics. But shouldn't one be very careful that the alleged heresy really *is* heretical?
That's where a sincere attempt to understand the other guy's POV comes in. The fundamental Baptists I mentioned accuse Catholics of this, that, and the other heresy, but the accusations are grounded in ignorance and bigotry, not in accurate knowledge or understanding of Catholic Teaching. These fundy guys are caricaturing and misunderstanding what Catholics believe; they are not making any effort to understand what the Catholic Church actually teaches; they would rather shout "heresy!" than make an honest attempt to find out what our teaching actually is and whether it really *is* heretical. It's so much easier to assume and denounce than to do research and ask questions with an open mind.
I see much the same thing operative among Orthodox polemicists. They don't *want* to see how the Filioque can be understood in terms acceptable to the East; they'd rather cling to their distortions and misunderstandings of Catholic Teaching--in a word, to their bigotry. In my experience, that's especially true for the Orthodox polemicists who come from fundy or Calvinist backgrounds. They're already used to caricaturing and misunderstanding and distorting Catholic beliefs...so, why stop now?
You mentioned Chalcedon. But that's just it, Daniel: The Holy Spirit led the Church to define Christology at these early Councils because the Christological heresies really *were* heresies. ("No doctrine is defined till it is violated." -- Newman.) But when contemporary Orthodox polemicists accuse us Catholics of heresy WRT the Filioque, what ecumenical council can they cite? None. The so-called Catholic "heresies" which you guys consider church-dividing have NEVER been decreed heretical at ANY ecumenical council. Never. If they really are heresies, and if the Holy Spirit really wants His Church to know this, then why weren't they ever defined as heresies at an ecumenical council, the way the early Christological heresies were? If you Orthodox are so het up about this stuff, then why doesn't the Orthodox Church convene an ecumenical council and decree the Filioque heretical? Unless and until it does, then Orthodoix polemicists are just blowing smoke when they insist that the Filioque is heresy.
Same goes for all the other stuff you consider church-dividing, e.g., Absolute Divine Simplicity and Original Sin and all the rest. NO ecumenical council has ever defined these things as heretical. So, if (supposedly) the Orthodox recognize ecumenical councils as their highest authorities in dogmatic matters...then "by what authority" do y'all claim that Absolute Divine Simplicity, Original Sin, Filiioque, etc., are heresies? The fact is--you have no authority for so claiming, because you cannot cite an ecumenical council (your highest authority) to that effect.
Diane,
Constantinople IV 879/880 condemned the filioque both theologically and canonically. This council is authoritative with Imperial authority (that's what an Ecumenical Council is). I will confess that they condemned the Carolingian variety of it, which became the dominate paradigm.
Constantinople V 1341,1347/1351 - condemned Barlaam for rejecting the essence-energy distinction and upheld Gregory Palamas' theology as Orthodox.
Canons from both councils were incorporated into the Syndokion of Orthodoxy. These are the parameters of the Orthodox Church. Whether or not there is wiggle room between the Councils you have defined and the Councils we recognize remains to be seen. Mike's made a valiant effort...
"But that's just it, Daniel: The Holy Spirit led the Church to define Christology at "early Councils because the Christological heresies really *were* heresies."
The monophysites don't think so, but by your rationalization, you are a polemicist for thinking that they are heretical and didn't hear them out carefully.
Nobody is going around calling you a heretic, I'm merely pointing out how you seem to ignore what our Church's have already said on the issue and your paradigm that we must find "common ground" as a starter. Sometimes that is the case, sometimes it is not...
Photios
Photios: The councils you cite...arethey generally recognized among the Orthodox as ecumenical councils? Straight answer, please. Thank you.
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